The Incident- Twisted Destinies
by TartarusSurviver
Summary: SNAP! You open your eyes one morning, next thing you know...you fall in love, another hour later someone is dead, another hour and the person you love is pregnant, the next hour somebody else is dead, the sky is falling, civilization is crumbling and the gods are locked up on Olympus. Who knew that one Incident could have a domino effect on everyone else's life?
1. Chapter 1

**REYNA**

THE DAY OF THE INCIDENT

You couldn't find an ounce of dignity in Reyna's face that night.

She always pictured herself going out in a blaze of glory, leading an army of fearless demigods against the endless forces of Tartarus, the ultimate battle between good and evil. A meaningful death. She sure as hell did not picture herself being torn to bite-size godly flavored bits of human jerky, alone in a dark fog covered forest by a pack of Chihuahua sized vicious baby dragons that smelled like they had been living in a cave full of dead fish their entire life.

Fire coursed through the veins in her thighs due to the endless sprinting and the the freezing air stung the inside of her lungs as she sucked in the thin oxygen that plagued these high altitude mountains. Reyna barricaded herself in a small wooden cabin away from the wave of monsters clawing away at the weak pine doors. The horrible screeching from the starving lizards made her want to tear her ears off her skull. Reyna's tolerance could only handle so much varying levels of annoying at one time.

Things could be worst though. Just outside the cabins windows should could see perhaps the worlds most dangerous rodeo and the idiot contender that proceeded to volunteer. Percy Jackson was standing in the mouth of a seventy foot long dragon. The creature looked absolutely terrifying to fight alone and would've taken at least twenty well trained Romans to slay but Percy decided to take it on without any help. It was without a doubt the stupidest thing he could possibly do. But who was she to say, not like he would listen to Reyna anyways. They recently had been arguing a lot more lately, about this very subject. But then again at this point in his demigod career, Perseus had basically become somewhat of an overpowered individual. The things that he could do... made him seem virtually invincible in the eyes of his peers. Hell even to Reyna, he seemed very much godlike.

He was struggling to hold open the monsters mouth by it's huge stone like teeth, but he still took the time to smile impishly at Reyna from the distance. She had no idea how he could be so upbeat while being in an utterly terrifying situation. She was sure going to give him a hell of a scolding later on today. The gold dragon was squirming uncomfortably, crushing the forest trees left and right like toothpicks, then accidentally threw itself right off the side of the giant rocky mountain side, one idiot demigod included.

Any other person would've been shocked or worried at what they had just witnessed but not Reyna, she had seen Percy survive much worse. It was just another day for that son of Poseidon. Plus she had more pressing matters to deal with.

The pack of dragons had set the cabin on fire and were patiently guarding the exits and windows. Reyna couldn't help but admire their intelligence. They cornered her into a flimsy wooden structure and prepared to tear her apart once the black smoke filled the room enough to force her out. Just earlier the creatures chewed her weapons and shield to pieces with their golden teeth, so she was completely defenseless. Her only options were to burn to death or fight the horde bare handed. The odds were not at all in her favor but she certainly had faced worse scenarios.

The cabin was filling with dangerous fumes of smoke and it was getting harder to breathe by the minute. There was no time to contemplate the various ways that she could die, she had to make a move _now._ Reyna ran around the cabin and grabbed the biggest weapon she could find which just so happened to be a sledge hammer. It wasn't your typical dragon slaying weapon but it wasn't completely useless either. Even if it was, Reyna was a Roman and would kill a hundred of these things with her fingernails if she needed to.

She took a deep breath, even though it was about eighty percent poisonous smoke, and slammed her shoulder through the door off, smashed it's hinges of the threshold and crushed at least ten dragons waiting on the welcome mat and turned them to monster goo. Reyna took no time to pat herself on the back, she charged through the forest at a full but slightly fatigued speed, swinging her hammer left and right like a maniac sending the wingless dragons flying in every direction. Immediately almost thirty other dragons appeared out of the fog and charged at her, spewing red hot flames everywhere setting the entire backside of her windbreaker and undershirt on fire.

 _God Dammit!_ She screamed in her mind, which was proceeded by an unintelligible shriek coming from her mouth.

Immediately she forgot her basic fight first instinct, and dropped her sledge hammer somewhere in the darkness. Reyna had learned many things in life and one of those lessons is that sometimes you had to pick your battles wisely, other times you just had to drop your pack and haul ass. Sadly she was still on fire, the upside was she was wearing a black tank top underneath her undershirt. Thank the gods nobody would see her running topless through the forest screaming bloody murder today. Reyna ripped her shirt and jacket off and tossed it at the pack of dragons who were catching up quickly _. Really quickly. Too quickly. Inches away..._

"Fuck!" Reyna screamed.

The dragons tore her shoe off her foot with their razor sharp teeth and dropped her to her knees. She scrambled to her feet and stumbled farther into the thick fog. Maybe if she got back to her vehicle she could get a hold of the back up weapon she kept in the glove compartment, but that was another couple hundred yards away. It was a magical bracelet that turned into a Roman gladius, you would think that Reyna would be smart enough to keep a bracelet on person at all times.

She had no idea what she was even doing anymore, which wasn't like her at all, she was always the one that you could count on to know the plan first. The world always runs smoother when Reyna is in charge.

 _What was the mission again?_

 _Allow boyfriend to arrange a secret quest without your permission, check._

 _Move out of your comfortable apartment for a week and a half, check._

 _Travel halfway across the country in pursuit of a dragons treasure, check._

 _Follow boyfriend deep into the dark forest, check._

 _Argue with your boyfriend about the dangers of 'winging it', check._

 _Allow boyfriend to 'wing it', check, sadly._

 _Almost get killed by a pack of infant dragons, double check._

 _Now what was the next step? Guess I gotta wing it._

Just as things were about to turn very bad for her, the ground in front of Reyna began to grow like a giant violent pimple, rumbling violently under her feet. A steaming hot geyser blew up only yards from her and spat out the infamous seventy foot long dragon that hit the ground with a sickening boom! The upside was that a large portion of the little lizard bastards were killed on impact, the rest scattered away like cockroaches, much to Reyna's content.

A very smug Percy stood over the monster with one foot on his thick scaly neck. The beast was clearly alive but it made no attempt to snap him in half like a Snickers bar. Clearly the creature couldn't handle his very demanding personality like Reyna could.

He was smiling like crazy. "Holy Tartarus! I think that this...was my best entrance yet."

"Can you look any less defeated?" Reyna was on her back breathing hard. "I was almost burned alive, but you...look as smug as you did the first time you fought in the war games at Camp Jupiter."

"At least the dragon put up a fight. But this right here, it's a lot easier than it looks." Percy laughed and stepped off the snarling beast. "Simple as guiding a torpedo through the skies with leather reins."

Apparently he must have twisted his ankle, the dragon snarled but still didn't find it in itself to gut him like he was clearly capable of doing. Percy snatched a book bag from the monsters sharp clutches. Whatever was in there, the beast wasn't to keen on letting it out of his grasp.

The gigantic force of nature shot forward like an arrow but Percy responded with the speed of a bullet. In one swift movement, he dropped the book bag, jumped into the sky, pulled out his sword midair, and sunk the celestial bronze blade between the dragons blood thirsty eyes. The corpse went limp immediately and exploded in red flames like a balloon as it's fiery skeleton slid across the ground. Percy landed on the wrong foot and crumbled to the dirt floor.

Reyna ran to his side and did a quick examination. "Can you believe it? The great Percy Jackson, victim to a minor twisted ankle. How anticlimactic."

"Haha. You know, whenever you ever feel up to it, how bout I'll let you slay the giant fire breathing lizard on steroids, where as I'll go for a little light jog through the park. Do you know how uncomfortable and slimy the inside of this joker's mouth was?"

Reyna scowled. "It was a little more than a light jog. I'm guessing this thing right here is the magical McGuffin we were looking for?"

Percy grinned. He unzipped his backpack and revealed a giant blue jewel the size of basketball. It shined like a diamond but it had an aura of power that it oozed like it was made of some type of radioactive material.

Reyna gawked at it wide eyes. "No wonder the dragon was out for blood."

She reached out to touch it but Percy closed it quickly.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. There is some sort of protection spell on it." Percy showed her his hands. They were covered in first degree burns all the way up to wrists. "Its strong as hell, I only touched it for like a split second and I felt like my melon was going to burst."

"Why on Earth would you want to steal it then? We should've just left it with the dragon. He didn't look like he was going to let it go anytime soon."

"I don't want this thing anywhere near me or any other mortal being out here. But based off of what Chiron said, its the eye of an ancient immortal being that was alive back in the days of the Titan Era. It contains a transferable source of power, how much power exactly. I don't know."

Reyna helped him to his feet. "Others went looking for it?"

Percy sighed. "Yeah. A high priority quest was needed, you and I are the third group of demigods to go looking for it. One of them couldn't get past the dragon, then a son of Hephaestus and a daughter of Hecate managed to find the jewel but were found in an Arizona ER days later with burns across their entire bodies and weird blue skin."

Reyna lifted him up and he leaned on her with his arm around her waist. "In that case, lets get this thing the hell out of here."

Percy grinned. "Now to Camp Half-Blood."

He navigated Reyna out of the forest and helped him into the passenger seat of their red pickup truck. She poured some nectar onto his wounds and pulled out some bandages from the glove department. She fed him a small piece of Ambrosia for the ankle pain, soon he would be good as new. "This is the fifth injury in two months, Percy. Maybe it's time to put down the sword and buy yourself a nice sturdy cane?"

"Are you kidding me?" Percy laughed. "This was way too easy for a quest."

"If it was so easy, then why bring me along?" Reyna asked with a smile as she applied the bandages to his burns.

Percy chuckled and wrapped his arm around her waist. "I didn't want to do it alone, Queen bee."

He pulled her in and gave her a soft kiss. Her heart skipped a beat just as it always did when he kissed her, followed by the warm and tender feeling that enriched her body like a witches hex. They hadn't been dating anymore than seven months but she always felt complete with him. Their love for each other would outlive the gods themselves.

Reyna pulled back caught his eyes and smiled hard. "Two Praetors of New Rome is a bit overkill for a quest like this don't you think?"

"Who cares? I always feel better knowing I have you by my side. Safe and sound...kind of." Said Percy as he watched the dim light of the dragons fire in the distance. "But hell you're right, I'm getting too old for quests."

"You're only twenty five, those are the prime years of your life."

"For mortals maybe, but for us it's like a hundred in demigod years."

"In that case, you should make a bucket list and start thinking about retirement."

"You're right," Percy grinned. "After we drop this thing off at the front steps of the Big House, you and I are officially retired... for good this time."

* * *

Music was her heaven, having Percy there with her was a blessing from the fates.

The soft vibrations of the engines rumbling and the melodic voices of Percy's playlist playing in the truck sent her into a well deserved lull that she didn't want to wake from. His right arm held her tight in his grasp and the other he kept on the steering wheel as he stared down a road that was only illuminated by the lights from his pick-up. Nothing else existed outside of the realm of this vehicle, only Percy and Reyna.

Occasionally she would open her eyes slightly, peek through her black bangs and look up at him. He didn't catch her long stares, but she studied his every feature; the shape of his green eyes, the stubble's of hair that was beginning to form a beard over his sharp jawline, every minuscule detail that made up his very being.

Percy did notice her stare once a couple hours into the drive. Obviously he didn't mind the smell of smoke and monster slime, that she picked up during the little confrontation a couple hours back. He looked down and caught her sharp brown eyes and smiled softly.

That smile was all she would ever need.

"Lets just keep on driving, forever." Reyna muttered and she fell back into a slumber.

Being alone with the person that you know for a fact that you would spend the rest of your life with...its a feeling like no other. There was no doubt in her mind that Percy was the one for her. Did he feel the same for her? They did fight sometimes but she hoped that he would. Love didn't come as natural to her as it did to others, but this felt right.

Percy's muscles stiffened about about a half hour later, yanking Reyna out of her dreams and back into the dark reality around her.

They were going sixty miles per hour with the windows rolled down in the pitch blackness that surrounded them in this deserted road. But just outside of the windows, past the loud roaring wind were a hundred different voices whispering in an unrecognizable tongue. It was strange, Reyna could understand many languages but this one...it rang in her skull and seeped with evil intentions.

At her feet, the orb was glowing beneath the jacket that had covered its soft glows just hours earlier. Percy looked at her with a worried expression on his face. "Reyna, put your seat belt on. NOW."

On a normal day, Reyna would've been the one with a higher level of situational awareness. She just wished she was quicker to click the belt in place.

An explosion rippled directly beneath the chassis of the truck and tossed the pickup into the air, sending the fiery two person cage flying into a nearby billboard just off road. The advertisement came crashing down, smashing the truck in half just down the center. Reyna on the other hand had been thrown from the vehicle when the truck impacted into the metal beams and was thrown into a nearby field of corn taller than she was and on a bed of gravel and dirt.

In that moment when her head met the ground, Reyna witnessed the complete absence of existence. She'd never seen darkness like this before, there was no underworld, no ferryman to guide her passage to the afterlife, not even so much as a white light, she would have been completely terrified if her mind would just wake up from this paralysis. It felt like an eternity, locked away in complete nothing. What brought her back was the sudden feeling of what felt like shards of razors making their way up her lungs and throat.

Reyna opened her eyes and coughed up dangerous amounts of blood. Her face was dripping with it, pain searing throughout her body like a poison and she could feel each and every single nerve the glass had struck after she smashed through the truck window. All of this pain was just on the edge of being bearable, if it hadn't been for the adrenaline pumping through her veins she couldn't even begin to imagine how much worse that situation could get.

Reyna's lungs suddenly felt like there was a giant dumbbell weighing down on her chest, every breath she took was like a drug that she just couldn't get enough of. She dug her fingers into the ground and made an attempt to stand on her feet but she stumbled forward and fell back onto her chest with a loud groan. Her ribs were broken for sure and her left arm was numb from the elbow down. Neither were good signs if a battle were to arise, which most likely was the case at hand.

 _Percy!_ She thought to herself. She successfully stumbled back onto her feet and followed the trail of smoke in the sky that eventually led to the burning vehicle once she got pass the the crops of corn. Gas was still spewing from the vehicle and had yet taken to the flames. Reyna limped towards the destruction hugging her ribs tightly and fell to her knees right in front of the windshield in hopes to find Percy still buckled into the drivers seat. He was no longer there.

 _Where is he?!_ , she thought to herself just as the flames from the burning metal reached the gas tank and sparked another fiery BOOM!

If it hadn't been for Percy, Reyna would surely died. He tackled her and used the momentum of the blast to propel their bodies through the air and into a ditch where they were protected from the fiery hell that had been unleashed to the dark and empty road. He pinned her down, she could hear his every ragged breath as he laid over her protecting her from further fallout.

"They're watching us." He whispered softly to her and Reyna saw something in his eyes that was rarely ever so revealing. Fear. "I-I don't even know what they are... I cant feel the blood in their bodies. They're just...empty."

Reyna slid her hands across his chest and felt a bulging sharp piece of red metal protruding from his chest just inches above his heart, a serious wound that was oozing blood dangerously fast.

"Percy." Reyna whimpered nearly sobbing, she tried to channel her strength and courage to Percy but she couldn't access her demigod abilities, it was almost as if they didn't even exist. This was a strange and unnatural feeling of vulnerability that she was not used to. "You're hurt, we need to get out of here!"

He didn't say anything, instead he covered her mouth with his palm and lowered his head. Two sets of headlights came to life from a couple yards away and engulfed the wreckage where Percy and Reyna had been standing not but a couple seconds ago.

The...things...that emerged from the vehicles made her body feel empty and sent shivers down her spine like a roaring ravine of freezing water.

The six leathery dark skin figures were shaped like men but their faces had no defining features attached to their skulls. No ears, no eyes, noses, or hair. Nothing but gaping mouths that sucked in the very light out of the world like a black hole. As the creatures stepped in front of the bright headlights, the energy dimmed significantly. Even the golden armor that they wore, was dull and diminished by the dark vortexes that siphoned anything even somewhat luminescent out of the air.

"There's someone else." Percy whispered quietly, as to not grab unwanted attention from the monsters that had just blown them off of the road. "Six monsters plus one other being. I can feel the blood of the gods nearby, but he's not anyone that I recognize."

Percy turned his heads towards the small group and then looked back at Reyna. She could sense exactly what he was thinking. Her heart dropped. Death was inching closer and closer as he lost blood at an alarming rate but he wanted to jump into another goddamn fight.

The sky began to rumble with thunder as storm clouds slowly blanketed the moon above as she grabbed him by the shirt. "Stay down, Percy. They're here for the orb, not us. For once just listen to what I have to say, we can't keep living like this way. We can only dodge death so often, so please stay down."

Percy grabbed her hand and held it in his own but Reyna was on the verge of a emotional breakdown.

"We can't let them have it. Chiron sent us out here for a reason, we've put in too much effort to just stop now and I am not going to let them just walk away with it."

Reyna grabbed his shirt with both hands this time and pulled him in closer just as droplets of water began to drop from the sky and lightning brightened the sky. "I DON'T CARE! You're hurt badly...please, Percy... just stay here with me. Just for once, don't fight. This is not worth dying for, don't be brave."

"All we do is fight." He replied sadly. "We've been fighting ever since we were strong enough to hold a dagger. We live, we fight, and we die. It's in our blood to be warriors."

He kissed her on the forehead and uncapped his sword revealing a dim three foot-long bronze blade. Reyna found the energy to stand tall at his side and pulled off a bracelet from her left wrist. As soon as she gripped it tightly in her palm it morphed into a golden gladius, her left arm was still very numb and just hanged there uselessly. "Fine, then we'll fight together."

Percy turned back and looked at Reyna. The rain soaking his body from head to toe. His face was in complete shock as he held out his arms trying to feel the water droplets on his skin. "I- I can't feel the water. My powers. They're...gone."

Lightning cracked in the sky and just like a well practiced boy band the creatures on the road snapped their necks to the right and spotted the duo almost simultaneously. They just stood there like they were demonic spirits in a painting. Just watching curiously from afar with those wide gaping mouths. What intimidated Reyna the most was the fact that these monsters, creatures, demons or what ever class of supernatural nastiness you wanted to call them...they had no weapons, shields, talons or teeth. Either these monsters provided no threat or they were vicious brawlers that could tear them apart with just their bony hands.

Percy took a step forward with his sword ready in a fighting stance. "Reyna, I want you to go search through the crash and see if you can find the orb. I'm gonna hold these guys off as long as I can."

Reyna nodded and limped back to the wreckage in hopes of finding the glowing rock but to no avail the blue glow was no where to be found. It had been basically calling out to her all night but now when she really needed it, the damn thing was no where to found. The six monsters were still there watching with their eyeless faces.

Percy began to shift uneasily as he took a careful step towards the group of monsters. "Where's the jewel, Reyna?" He asked nervously.

She rummaged through the metal and fire but still come up with nothing. "It's not here!"

The creatures were still making no move. "Find it...These guys don't look like they're going anywhere anytime soon."

Reyna nodded and ran to continue the search for the jewel. "Do you know who I am?" Percy yelled at the creatures.

They made no moves but the surroundings just got a whole new shade of darker. Their mouths got wider as they sucked the light from the world, the stars and moon in the sky seemed to bleed light until every single ounce of it's energy was sucked into the vortex even the headlights in the vehicle dimmed until they imploded.

"We know who you are Percy Jackson." A voice from the shadows spoke aloud in a raspy voice, similar to the voice of a man that had been smoking cartons of cigarettes every day of his entire life. "We hear whispers of the son of Poseidon. The lucky one they call you. You have lived a life of glory built on a foundation of failures from mediocre fools that couldn't get the simplest of tasks done."

Reyna noticed a dim glow coming from the field of crops maybe a good three hundred yards away. It was possible to make a run for the crops but she was unsure about leaving Percy to fend for himself. She could see the man who had spoke in the raspy voice, he was a shadow hidden in dull black armor from head to toe and blanketed in black rags that made him look eerily similar to the grim reaper.

Percy chuckled weakly. "Bad guys always thought they were tough shit. Destined for glory and the throne just like the guy who cried the same excuses before him, it was just up to me and my friends to knock em down a peg."

The stranger swayed side to side and creeped closer to Percy dragging behind a giant long black sword. "Oh we've heard the stories. The tales of your feats have echoed the darkest depths of Tartarus for more than a decade. Kronos. Gaea. Polybotes. Porphyrion. Big names, big titles...even bigger egos. What comes next...you are entirely unprepared for, _Percy_."

Percy shot forward quickly and slashed Riptide at the strangers neck, but the man was just too fast, he parried Percy's sword with his own black steel and then kicked one leg out from under him. Percy fell to one knee and the stranger used his giant sword to stab right through his thigh and deep into the earth below. Reyna's heart fell into her stomach and her body went cold. The scream that came from Percy's lungs couldn't have any more terrifying.

"NOOO!" Reyna let out a bloodcurdling cry. She sprinted towards the stranger dragging her sword along behind her with the one good hand that she had.

"RUN!" Percy screamed as he gripped his bloody leg tight with a far away look in his eyes. "Reyna! Get out of here!"

She slashed her sword at the armored stranger but he casually took a step back. It was when she got closer to this man that she finally took note to his steel black helm, it was molded into the shape of a skull revealing only the mans black eyes. "Get the fuck back! Get out of here! Or I'll send you back to whatever piss filled hole you came out of!"

Percy ripped off his own belt and wrapped it a couple inches above the sword impaled into his thigh and tightened it as hard as he could in order to cut off the circulation for his leg.

Every breath he took was short and ragged, the wound in his chest should have killed him by now but he was pushing through far better than anyone should have been able to. He wrapped both hands around the hilt of the sword and yanked it out followed by a scream and a very steady stream of blood. "Oh shit..." He muttered just before his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he collapsed under the weight of the long-sword.

"Percy!" Reyna dropped to his side and put her fingers to his neck. There was a pulse but it was very weak, the blood loss would kill him within minutes if she didn't get rid of these guys as quick as possible.

"He's already dead, little one." The stranger took a step forward but Reyna swung her sword and missed him by just inches.

"Cállate la boca, o te mataré donde estés, hijo de puta!" Reyna cursed in Spanish while advancing towards the demon wailing her sword back and forth.

The stranger didn't seem at all intimidated by Reyna's sword. "You are not entitled to be making threats, demigod. We clearly have the upperhand."

Reyna held her sword chest high but the stranger merely walked directly into her blade like he was a ghost.

"Who are you?" She muttered in fear. "What do you want from us?"

"I am only the messenger for a greater power." He whispered. "You have something that belongs to us, something that we have been looking for ever since we were released from the pit..."

Reyna ripped the sword from his chest and slashed the stranger shoulder to hip but it sliced through his body like he was made of ash. Reyna was never one to cry during a battle, but she looked over her shoulder and saw that with all injuries that had just been inflicted on the duo, the rate of survival for her and Percy was not looking too good. Nobody was coming to the rescue. She was an exhausted one armed sword fighter, Percy was dying, and there was nothing she could do about it. She began to swing her sword angrily as the heavy rains began to mix with her soft tears.

The stranger heard the silent sobs she was withholding deep within her chest. "Don't be afraid, little one. You should be accepting a hero's death with open arms, Elysium awaits for you in the Underworld!"

She looked back at Percy. He was beginning to stir from the pool of deep red blood.

The stranger took a step forward and rested his hand on her shoulder. "I know what ails you, my child. But gods and men have succumbed to death alone for centuries and centuries to come. When we molded the race of men from the dirt and rain, you were created as a singular being. As it began, so shall it end."

He reached forward and slid his right hand into her chest like a ghost and leaned forward. "You don't have anything to worry about. You are going to be the exception, I'll make sure you don't depart from this reality without an ally by your side. The young hero will see you again soon, that's if he doesn't choose rebirth. The greatest hero's always choose reincarnation..."

Just as the story of her life would began to come to an end, Reyna's grip on her gladius begins to loosen.

There wasn't any other option but to stop fighting. Her mother would disown her if she'd seen her daughter giving into death so easily. She looked over her shoulder and was given a slight boost of confidence when she saw that Percy was now turned over on his side and was holding onto the black long sword with both hands as if he were about to pounce and attack.

Suddenly a giant blue blast of energy shot from the crops and into the sky like a giant vortex of beautiful lightning and blue flames. The stranger took a step back and cackled in joy under his helm. "The Eye! It calls to us! Find it and bring it to me!"

The six creatures that had remained motionless until now rushed forward like Olympic runners to fetch the orb.

Reyna gave one last effort and sliced the stranger's waist in half with her sword. She finally hit something solid, he bellowed in pain and erupted into black ash. She nearly jumped with excitement and crazy laughter but it was quickly overpowered by worry and anger when she turned around and saw that Percy was running after the creatures, with the five foot long sword dragging behind him.

"Goddammit, Percy!" Reyna screamed as she stumbled after him through the rain and mud.

Dangerous bursts of lightning began to crack in the air and explode randomly, within a half a mile radius of the orb. But these weren't average bolts of lighting, they were black columns of pure energy unlike anything Zeus had in his arsenal. The stars had completely disappeared into the darkness. The creatures chasing the orb had created a world of pure darkness, it made it almost impossible for her to navigate her way through the crops. There was only the giant vortex of energy shooting into the sky but it was getting weaker by the second.

Then there were the voices, a hundred-No, a thousand voices overlapping, screaming in her head in pain and suffering. All dying to be heard but Reyna couldn't understand the language. The only thing louder were the creatures who were roaring like savage animals. Reyna could very lightly see Percy's silhouette slashing these monsters in half just ahead as he ran quicker than someone that had almost had died, should be given the right to. But these creatures seemed to be dying and reappearing one after another. One of the monsters leaped out from the crops in her path, and she just barely had the strength to stab her sword through its gaping mouth. It went that way for what felt like miles, her chest was weighing down heavier and heavier making each breath almost impossible to take, running through the ashes of dead monsters to only god knows where.

The end of the line brought her to a small circular clearing, with the orb laying on the dirt glowing violently but no longer shooting columns of energy into the sky. The screaming voices were gone, now replaced with complete silence. It was like they were standing in a dark and empty night club with only one pulsing light. Percy stood over it, the rain dripping over his black hair and falling onto his pale blood soaked bare chest. You could still see the metal shard deep into his breast plate, how he could move or breathe at all was a miracle. He ripped off his shirt and used the cloth to cover both his palms so that he could safely pick up the orb without scarring his arms in burns. The faceless creatures surrounded him but made no move.

"Are you okay, Percy?" Reyna stood a couple feet away with her sword drawn. The golden gladius in her hands finally began to shine as she inched closer towards the orb and its radius of power. The feeling of blood rushing was finally returning back into her arm as she felt a new wave of energy and strength surge through her body like pure adrenaline.

"Get away from the Eye, boy." The stranger growled as he emerged from the opposite side of the crops fully reformed. "The power will tear your body and soul apart, you are not strong enough to host the life of the eye."

Percy ignored the man, his green eyes seemed to glow under the power of the orb. He snatched up the rock and pointed it at the stranger. The faceless monsters flinched at the sight of the orb just as a normal person would if they had a gun pointed at them. "You're scared aren't you. I can see the look in your eyes under that helmet. Your shitting yourself right now aren't you?"

"Kill him." The stranger growled angrily.

All six creatures pounced at Percy but the orb glowed violently and released a volley of energy blasts loose on every single creature before their feet ever had the chance to leave the ground. They exploded in a spectacle of ash and lightning.

The cloaked man took a step forward and held his hands high in a sign of defeat. This scared Reyna. "For once the stories may be true, demigod. It seems that I was mistaken to assume that you were as weak as you truly appeared to be. But in this I am not. You are making a grave mistake here. If you do not drop the Eye... if you are not burned to the core of your existence...you will face a greater agony than you can imagine. Put it down before its too late."

"Thanks for the advice, but I think I'd much rather add you to list of mediocre beings that have tried and failed at completing the simplest tasks." Percy's eyed glowed blue and he let another wave of energy loose that burned every thing within ten feet to ash. Reyna rolled behind the a wall of crops just in time to avoid waves of pure energy. The stranger seemed to almost smile under that mask of his before he turned into a cloud of ash and gold blood. Percy cried allowed as a giant beam of pure energy coursed through his veins and pierced the sky like he was a lightning rod.

The energy coursing through the jewel burned right through the cloth wraps knotted together on his hands. His bare skin was exposed to the orb and began to turn a dark shade of blue just before the jewel exploded into a million pieces. Percy shot backwards like he was just hit with couple million volts of electricity and went crashing into the stalks of corn.

"Percy!" Reyna screamed at the top of her lungs.

She scrambled to her feet and ran to the point of impact to find Percy laying on his back, steam curled from his blue tinted skin. Reyna lifted him into her arms, the texture of his skin was slowly morphing into this diamond like texture.

Reyna was crying as she cradled him tightly close to her chest, his skin was growing colder and the life in his eyes was slowly dissipating. "You're gonna be alright, Percy. Come on, we just need to get you out of here t-then, um...Chiron will know what to do. Please just stay with me..."

Percy's smile looked the same as it did a couple of hours ago, happy and full of life. Anyone who ever saw that smile...the way he bestowed it upon her everyday, they would have instantly be pulled towards him like gravity.

"I think it'd be best... If I just...sat right here... With you." He struggled to speak as his body began to be consumed by the radiation of the orb. "Hey, would you look at that...I can feel the water now, but I'm guessing I'm to far along to be healed by it..."

Reyna was choking on her words. "We have to find you some help, Percy. Someone can help us, please...we have to try."

He held his hand to her face. "I got us into some real deep shit today... I'm sorry I can't stay to be here for you...Reyna."

"You were, Percy." She sobbed. "Every time I needed someone to be there for me, you were right by my side. You are the only person in the world that I will ever need." Reyna leaned in and kissed him.

"I love you, Reyna." He whispered.

Reyna managed another forced smile as she tried to keep her composure as strong as possible. Just as she was about to speak, Percy reached forward with his hand and brushed his fingers along her cheek. His body suddenly stiffened as he morphed into a crystal statue of the man that he once was.

"Percy?" She whispered and held his frozen hand close to her cheek. "No...please don't leave me...Percy, please. I love you..."

His crystal silhouette crumbled in her arms. Percy Jackson, every molecule of him whatsoever, had just crumbled to pieces. All that was left behind of him was his pen. Reyna's usual strong demeanor fell apart like a broken mirror. She inhaled sharply and exhaled just as fast. She clawed at her own arms and began to sob violently.

That day, the Incident as people would later refer to it as, is the day that an era ended.

Where were the gods in a time like this?


	2. Chapter 2

**REYNA**

 _TWO YEARS BEFORE THE INCIDENT_

Stick to the rules and you won't die a nasty death.

Rule number one to living in the mortal world...always prepare for the absolute worse case scenario. You gotta live your life as if the alarms for DEFCON 1 were just seconds away from being sounded.

One minute you could be sitting in a Chicago coffee shop, enjoying your freshly baked scone and hot chocolate then BOOM! A Cyclops bursts through the window and beats you to death with his club made from human limbs tied together by barbed wire and the long hairs off of some poor saps back. This may seem like an extreme case of bad luck but hey, weirder stuff has happened out here.

Much to her disappointment this was not the case for today.

Reyna always figured with her years of experience on being a leader to hundreds of experienced soldiers capable of tearing down hoards of monsters, would have provided her with all of the knowledge and skills that she would ever need to survive whatever situation the world could possibly throw at her. But ever since she moved into the realm of mortals, the biggest hurtle she had to overcome was the fact that she, as an individual, was no longer at war with the forces of evil.

When she showed up to the coffee shop that early morning, she was running the risk of having to speak to people. Now don't get the wrong idea, Reyna was not antisocial by any means, she loved people...but damn mortals could act like real idiots sometimes. One minute you could be talking to someone really nice and well educated and the next moment you could be speaking to some idiot that was trying to get a photo of you two making out, in the same spot where he proposed to his wife; in hopes that she would take him back; once seeing the picture, even after years of being a complete and utter douchebag. That isn't even made up, Reyna literally experienced that exact situation.

The man she met that morning was no where near as bad as the other idiot. He was actually pretty handsome...but his smile and teeth... were so white and perfect. Where were the cyclopes when you needed them the most?

"That looks like an interesting book, what's it about?" The guy asked pointing at the open novel on the table.

"You can check it out at the library down the street and find out for yourself. Its a good read." Reyna replied back and took a sip of her hot chocolate. It was almost as good as the one back in New Rome, but it just didn't have that homemade feel to it.

"I'd much rather hear it come from you." The man said in awkwardly persuasive tone. "You have a very beautiful voice."

Reyna looked up from the pages of her book. This guy was still smiling, his teeth were so blinding...Why did it bother her so much?

"Can I help you with something?" Reyna asked with a tad bit of annoyance. The man wasn't phased at all by Reyna's directness. In no offense to this guy, but he was not at all her type, he seemed too...weak and soft. She had surrounded herself by so many great men in her life, she thought her relationship goals were a bit too unrealistic. But she still would not settle for anything less.

"Nope." He was still smiling. "I just was sitting over there with my friends-"

He pointed to group of college aged guys like him, they were pretending not to look but obviously were while giggling like a bunch of five year olds at the same time. Reyna noticed the bumbling idiots as soon as she walked into the cafe, they all seemed like relatively harmless frat boys that were only just trying to pick up women.

"Nice friends." She remarked without so much as a side ways glance.

"Yeah..." He agreed. "But anyways I seen you were here...sitting all alone...by yourself."

"How observent of you."

He laughed. "Exactly. But anyways... I thought to myself, 'Hey, that girl is really really beautiful, she looks like she needs a little bit of spizaz in her life.' so I decided--"

To be completely honest, Reyna totally zoned out. She just kept reverting back to the thought that if this was Camp Jupiter, she probably would've smashed this guy's teeth in for being so cheesy. She just watched as he kept on talking and talking for the next minute and a half straight without even taking a breath. He was even laughing at his own jokes now...

The guy reached over and put his hand on hers. Alarms went off in her head, red flags were going up like crazy. Reyna figured this guy had approxamitely three seconds before she sliced his hand off with the golden dagger tucked in between her thighs. He had no idea that she would proudly put his hand on display in her apartment after she dismembered him.

"-And I was thinking maybe...you and I could go out on a date or something, I don't know."

Reyna glared daggers at him but the guy didn't even flinch...neither did his perfect smile. It made her sick to the core.

"Umm babe, is this guy bothering you?" Said a new voice right beside her.

Reyna snatched her hand from the frat boy and turned to the other guy ready to tear him a new one. Who did he think he was calling her _babe_?

"What did you just call me?!" She snapped at him.

The man hovering next to her wore a black custom tailored suit with a silk navy blue tie, his hair slick back and a impish grin planted on his face. Reyna went slack jawed when she realized who it was, if it weren't for those sea green eyes she probably wouldn't have even recognized him.

"Percy?" She wanted to laugh at the sight of the frat boy's face. "Did you just call me _babe_?"

"Oh I'm sorry, _babe_ , I forgot, you preferred to be called honey. Or was it wife? Hold on I think you were really fond of the term ' _future baby momma_ ' at one point in our relationship too." Percy lied ever so smoothly and then turned towards the very uncomfortable cherry faced young man sitting in the booth.

"Jesus Christ! I am so sorry!" The guy in front of Reyna scooted out of the booth so quickly he almost tripped over his own feet. "I must be in the wrong booth. I didn't mean to hit on your baby momma-or wife or whatever. My bad, you all have a nice day!"

He awkwardly shook Percy's hand and shuffled away as quickly yet conspicuously as possible.

"By the gods, if I had flirted with you like that when we first met, I'd be chopped up and tossed into Aurum and Argentum's doggy chow by now. But that hand touch though...real smooth..." Percy chided as he took the man's seat in the booth.

Reyna smiled and she placed her dagger on the table. He knew her so well. "Trust me, that man was just seconds away from losing that hand."

"This isn't New Rome," Percy laughed. "Where the acts of mutilation to another man's body parts are considered an act of kindness to society. You can get some very hard time in a human prison."

"Dagger's aren't my only specialty, I can make use of a shiv just as easily I can any other sword." Reyna joked as she set her book aside for one of the very few male companions that was worth spending time with. Percy's presence was a much welcomed surprise. It had been more than a year since any person she recognized from her past life had visited her since she left Camp Jupiter. It was nice.

"So I see you made a change of appearance." Reyna pointed to the suit and non-messy hair. "It's not a bad look, you actually seem surprisingly handsome."

"Well when there aren't any monsters or beings of supreme power trying to kill me, I tend to clean up nicely."

"What brings you to Chicago in a fancy new suit? Don't tell me you just left some poor bride at an altar."

"Haha nope, I'm actually just getting back from a short trip with Nico to Egypt, me and him got new tailored suits from a wolf headed dude named--wait a minute! No freaking way." Percy grabbed her book and flipped through the pages. "I can't believe it! _Inside The Mind of a Tortured Soul,_ _By Clarrise La Rue._ I heard rumors about this book but I wasn't so sure that it even existed!"

Reyna smirked, snatched her book back and revealed the authors photo in the back. The daughter of Ares was smiling in a plush red turtleneck with her hands on her hips. Percy looked like his head had just exploded due to the sheer awesomeness of the picture. "It was a limited release and I was lucky enough to get a copy of this masterpiece. This women has such a way with words, Percy, you can't even began to understand the complexity of her beautiful mind."

"I cannot believe this is actually happening," Percy put his hands on his head and bursted out into laughter. "This is the woman that tried drowning me in a toilet when I was twelve!"

Reyna nearly busted out laughing. "The woman that wrote this book would never do something like that!"

"I'm gonna give her so much shit, the next time I see her." Percy smiled at the thought of it.

"Well when she finishes kicking your ass left and right, can you ask for her autograph too?" Reyna snickered.

"You bet your ass I will." Percy finally contained most of his excitement but you can tell he was still running the scenario in the back of his head over and over again. "Anyways, how are you, Reyna? The last time I saw you we were at the retirement ceremony and the inauguration for the next Praetor, Isaac."

 _How are you?_ Wow, when was the last time someone had been caring enough to ask that question? "I'm actually doing really good, I think I've started to finally part with the burden of responsibility that I was carrying on my shoulders for so many years."

"Aren't you an assistant to some super rich guy at some sort of oil industry or something like that."

Reyna got angry at the thought of her still being an assistant after so much time. "I am an assistant, but I don't plan staying that way for too long. I am the daughter of Bellona, the goddess of war, I was the Praetor at Camp Jupiter for years and prevented worldwide catastrophe on multiple different occasions from beings with immeasurable amounts of power. And I'll be damned if I have to fetch that hideous mongrel boss of mine another cup of coffee for ANOTHER MONTH."

Reyna's vision went red for a split second. She didn't realize she unsheathed her knife and impaled her book. Everyone in the diner was staring at her now. Maybe she had been holding back more emotions than she had realized. Percy looked at the book like she had just murdered his puppy.

Reynas blood was still boiling. "I feel like I'm back at Camp Jupiter for the first time ever...a recruit on probatio...I plan to make a change real soon."

She unlodged her gold knife from her ruined book, and resheathed it. Reyna felt a bit embarrassed, it was rare for her to lose her temper but she couldn't hold it in any longer.

She didn't look Percy in the eyes but instead stared out the window. That was until he leaned forward, reached across the table and held her hands. Weirdly she didn't feel the need to want to slice his hands off and shove them down his own throat.

"Don't worry about it, Reyna." He said with a soft smile. "Im sure you'll be the CEO of some evil corporation in no time. I remember my first year out here. It was horrible, especially with school. I almost gutted my math professor because I thought he was a monster...but boy did I pass that class..."

Reyna smiled at the thought. "That's nothing, I ran over one of neighbors with my car just a couple months ago. In my defense, her costume was little bit too realistic for a Halloween party."

Percy leaned back in his seat and grinned. "Rookie mistake, every demigod knows better than to walk around in public during Halloween."

Reyna cracked a smile. "Why exactly did you wander into the same diner that I was in? Chicago is a big place and the world certainly isn't that small."

Percy smiled and fiddled with his tie. "Is it that hard to believe that it was fate that brought us together?"

Reyna scowled. "Percy...have you been talking to the fates recently?"

She didn't think that the question was too ridiculous, Percy has encountered some very over powered individuals in his lifetime. Why wouldn't he have spoken to them?

"No." He admitted. "I just wanted to see a friendly face. From the looks of it, you could benefit from it too."

Reyna smiled at him and he returned the gesture. It was true and who better than Percy to drop by and keep her company.

"You know what, I think I could use your help with a problem I've been having. That's if you're not busy, of course." She asked.

Percy raised an eyebrow. "For you? You don't even have to ask, I'm always available."

"Perfect," Reyna smiled wholeheartedly. "Because I'm pretty sure my friend Nancy is part of a group of homicidal desert Nymphs that have infiltrated the oil company that I work for, and I'm almost positive that they have been trying to assassinate us one by one with poisonous blow darts..."


	3. Chapter 3

**REYNA**

 _76 HOURS AFTER THE INCIDENT_

 _"The only thing stopping us from achieving true happiness... is reality."_

When Reyna was a little girl, she spoke to her mistress, Circe, asking her to reveal her many interesting stories from her unnaturally long life. They were exciting and filled with so many wondrous adventures and experiences that any woman could learn from. Reyna didn't learn about the evil deeds until after she left the island. Looking back on it now, all those amazing tales, she could barely remember. But that line about happiness and reality, its that truth that would stick with her after so many years.

Being a demigod was...tragic, it was a reality that every half-blood learned early on in their lives. Depressing isn't it? Sometimes it's best to keep a sense of humor about it, Reyna would tell the new recruits. Percy sure did make it seem like it was amazing and honorable.

Reyna believed that if he were able to see his funeral, he'd be surprised by the turnout. Percy would have probably made a snarky comment about it too, she guessed.

The older demigods, the ones that really knew him, decided that it would best honor the fallen hero if the ceremony was conducted right here in Camp Half-Blood on the beach, when the moon was at it's highest and shined a natural beautiful glow. It was without a doubt the largest demigod gathering in history. There were hundreds of them, Greek and Roman, each and everyone of them came to pay their respects to the legendary hero.

The crowd stood in a semicircle around Percy's ceremonial coffin and shroud which was elevated twenty feet off the ground on a wooden altar. His shroud was a simple black silk with a green trident stitched down the center, showered with real emeralds and two golden drachmas centered where his eyes would be. Reyna stood in the front row, her eyes low to the ground, red and dry from hours of constant tears. Was this all real?

Chiron stood in the distance somberly overlooking the masses, this must have hit him harder than most, another student to go down in history, not by natural death but killed by the evil forces of nature.

He unslung his bow and notched a flaming arrow preparing to aim at the shimmering shroud, but before he took aim, a horn echoed from over the rough tides of the sea and suddenly those waves became absolutely still as if they were magically frozen in time. It was an absolutely stunning view, followed by the breathtakingly scary view of an enormous army of thirty foot tall Cyclops emerging from the waves led by a much more superiorly giant Cyclops, their general, Tyson...Percy's only brother. His one sad eye was bloodshot and red from crying. He made a three finger gesture over his heart and the winds took to the skies warding the camp from evil. He looked to Chiron who nodded in response, dousing his arrow in the sand.

The army of Cyclops marched until they stood in the shallow parts of the beach, meanwhile Tyson approached Percy's shroud, he was tall enough to overlook his brothers altar and carefully set down a tiny round mechanical device on the shroud. He whispered something to the empty shroud and took back to his army. Maybe Percy could hear his brothers words deep down in Elysium.

What happened next defied all expectations.

The night sky suddenly split open and bathed the entirety of the beach in artificial sunlight like a hundred suns. A shower of gold rain fell onto a spot directly behind the crowd of demigods to reveal a formidable gathering of gods, minor ones as well as the Olympians, dressed in white and gold togas. They were almost as tall as the cyclopes in the distance. The demigods made a path for the gods. Most of them would never get to meet an actual immortal, other than Dionysus or Lupa, so it shocked them all to see so many beings of immense power in one place.

Each immortal took a moment to drop a single gold coin on Percy's burial shroud. Reyna watched wide eyed as many of them were tearing up or crying. Why were they so sad, they didn't know him. Some of them didn't even like him. But nonetheless it was incredible, almost every god was there except for the ones you wouldn't expect to show like Jupiter or Pluto, but most notably Neptune was a no show to his very own son's funeral. Reyna found that slightly off that a father would miss out on something like this…

By the time each and everyone of the gods and goddesses had paid their respects, Percy's shroud had retained a fortunes worth of Drachmas and Denarii.

Throughout the entire ceremony not a word was spoken because none was needed. Everybody new exactly what type of person Percy Jackson was. To many, he was a hero that fought selflessly for others until his very last breath. But Reyna knew that although that was true, he never felt the quenching thirst to be titled a hero, he didn't fight because he wanted to, he fought because he needed to.

He hated bullies, and this world had a never ending supply of them.

Finally towards the end, Percy's shroud was burned. The small device Tyson placed on his altar took off into the skies like a bottle rocket and set the entire altar aflame with a swirl of beautiful multicolored flames that consumed the shroud and all the gold whole with its immense heat. What was so enticing about the flames wasn't the shiny colors but instead it was the story that they told. In the center of the fire, flames took shape and depicted events that took place in his life.

The figure of a young boy carrying a lightning bolt, the same boy guiding a pirate ship through the sea, him holding the sky over his shoulders, and many other breathtakingly beautiful multicolored works of art, they were moments where Reyna had been absent, but she recognized them through Percy's stories from when they used to spend hours alone together, just talking. Moments with friends and loved ones, moments of hardships, but what made Reyna the happiest was seeing Percy's constant smile in the flames.

It was… the same exact smile she would see on his face everyday…

* * *

The night ended rather quickly. The Romans packed their things and left back across country to Camp Jupiter, whereas the Greeks went back to their cabins or to the amphitheater to tell stories and eat s'mores. As for Reyna, she had nowhere else to go. She stayed on the beach for a little while, with the company of her friends. Leo, Hazel, Frank, Piper, and Jason, they were the only demigods left from the second great prophecy…

They sat in the sand around a small fire. She realized that there were other people mourning just as much as she was, maybe even more than Reyna. Jason seemed to be taking it particularly hard.

"Do you remember when we first met, Percy," Hazel asked as she laid her head on Frank's shoulder and held his hands in hers. "He was carrying a goddess in his arms while being chased by two gorgons."

Reyna remembered the moment. It was sometimes difficult to remember that there was a time that they weren't even together.

Frank nodded. "If it weren't for him, those two ugly snake headed ladies would've torn me to shreds all that time ago."

Leo snickered. "If it weren't for Percy's bad romance skills, I would've never had a chance with Calypso."

Piper smiled. "It's getting late guys. Maybe we should call it a night?"

"But were just getting started." Jason said as he held a half drunken bottle of wine in his hand.

Sadly not everybody mourned the same ways.

Piper gave him a stare. "Jason…"

He stood and gave her a child like look. "We'll get together soon, right guys?"

"Of course." Said Reyna.

"I'm always here for you guys." Leo stood up. "You guys no where to find me, all you have to do is shoot a bottle rocket in the direction of the moon and I'll be there in a heart beat. In the mean time…live long and prosper.''

Leo smiled sadly and his figure suddenly became distorted until it disappeared like a TV that had suddenly lost signal.

Jason grabbed Piper by the hand and they walked off towards camp leaving only the three.

"Do you want to come and stay with us in my cabin?" Hazel asked. "Nico left to see dad, so it's only me and Frank in the Pluto cabin."

"I appreciate the offer, but I'm going to be staying in the guest cabin for today." Reyna scooted closer to the fire. "Then tomorrow, I'll be heading back to Chicago."

"You're leaving the camp?" Frank asked incredibly. "You can't head back out there all alone."

Reyna twisted her silver ring. "I have a job and a home to get back to, Frank."

"But we just loss...Its not safe, Reyna. I don't think it's such a good idea."

Hazel took a seat right next to her. "I don't think you should be so quick about heading out, stay here at camp for a couple days. Give it some time, rest up and think it over a bit. If you still feel that you want to go back to Chicago, me and Frank will make the drive with you."

Frank nodded in agreement.

Reyna managed a teary eyed smile. "I'll think it over. But if you guys don't mind, I'd like a little time with myself for now."

Hazel gave her a hug and smirked. "I hope this doesn't weird you out considering you were my superior not too long ago."

Reyna laughed. "I'm retired, Hazel. Plus were friends, we can hug as much as your giant heart wants to."

When she finally got enough hugging, Hazel stood up and took Frank's hand. "Will you be alright, Reyna?"

Reyna smiled. "Of course I will be. I'm a Roman..."

"And so are we," Frank interjected. "But even us stone cold Romans need friends every now and again."

"Exactly," Hazel agreed. "Just know we're here for you."

Reyna nodded, Hazel told her good night and then she walked off with Frank to their cabin back at camp.

The night was still young and she was finally alone, Reyna realized that this was the first time, she had been even remotely alone since that night. There was nobody else but her own shadow to keep her comfort.

It hit her hard once she came to the conclusion that Percy would no longer have her back. He wouldn't be there….when she needed him the most. Whenever she got scared or alone….he was the only person in the entire world... that understood her. While the people around her expected the most and handed her all the responsibilities until she was on her knees with the weight of the world on her shoulders...Percy would be there to take a share of the burden.

Reyna hugged her knees and dug her feet into the sand. She began to choke on her every breath as tears uncontrollably fell along the side of her face.

This was truly the worst pain that she could ever feel.

To lose the only person that she had ever loved…

Reyna didn't expect it to be like this so early. To feel as if a giant piece of her had just been permanently removed from her life...

She reached into her pants and pulled Percy's pen from her pocket. She uncapped it to reveal that his sword Riptide was glowing red on and off again like a broken flashlight. As if it knew that it too had lost its owner. Reyna sheathed the sword and set it down next to her in the sand.

She was still crying. Reyna wiped her tears away but noticed someone was quietly watching her from the waves twenty feet away. He hadn't been standing there just a second ago…

Reyna grabbed Riptide. "Who's there?"

She uncapped the blade and laid her eyes across the beach at the man who stood in the waves with his hands held behind his back. He was tall and had messy hair.…with sea green eyes.

It couldn't be. She must've been imagining things. Percy was gone.

Reyna's grip on Riptide became weak, she slowly and carefully approached him and dropped the sword entirely. As she got closer she thought she could see him smiling, she was sure of it so she sprinted towards Percy.

He was standing in waters only up to his bare feet. Wearing a black suit with his dress pants rolled up to his knees and his black tie loose. As she got closer, Reyna nearly had a heart attack. The man in the water wasn't Percy.

She stopped herself from nearly jumping up to embrace the man like some fool. It looked very much like him but much older with a black goatee but his aura of power was so strong.

Reyna took a step back. "You're not him… I'm sorry. I thought you were…you're his father...Lord Neptune."

The god didn't say a word, he only looked down at the water at his feet.

Reyna wiped the dry tears from her face and gained her composure and knelt at the presence of the Olympian. "My condolences, Lord Neptune. I'm truly sorry for your loss."

Neptune stared at her with a puzzled look on his face. "My loss?"

"Yes, M'lord." Reyna said softly as she looked up to him. "Percy…your son."

He looked back at the point in the distance where the moon touched the water. "I haven't spoken to my son in three years..."

Reyna slowly rose from her position and stepped into the shallow waters. "I don't mean to offend you M'Lord, but why didn't you show up to the ceremony?"

"I haven't spoken to my son in three years…" Neptune repeated and remained silent for a solid minute. "But I was listening to his words whenever he prayed...every single whisper. He was angry with me. But Zeus began to enforce the ancient laws. That should not have stopped me, I should have spoken to him, I should have let him know that I was there for him."

He turned towards Reyna and it was at that moment she realized what was wrong. He felt pain and guilt. The expression on his face…it was devastating. He must have believed that he didn't deserve to show up to his son's funeral, he must have thought Percy wouldn't have wanted him there. She imagined how many children of his, how many kids that he loved, he had to watch grow and then die. Yet there was not a thing he could do to stop it, immortal weren't allowed to interfere no matter what.

"I recall every prayer...he uttered in those three long years of silence. Every time he asked for help. Every time he asked for guidance. Yet I never spoke to my son…"

"Percy understood why you couldn't answer him back, M'lord. He always told me such great things about you."

He smiled and chuckled. " _Reyna Ramìrez-Arellano._ I could say the same exact thing about you."

Neptune walked to the small camp fire in the sand. "For the past three years he spoke very highly of you. I don't believe you realize the affect you've had him."

Reyna stood frozen in the water. "He prayed to you about me?"

Neptune picked up Riptide from the sand and unleashed the three foot long blade. "Reyna...when you think about Percy, you only think about the effect he's had on you. How he carried you through perilous moments in life. But have you ever stopped to consider what you have done for him."

Reyna stared at the ground. She must've been such a burden on Percy's life holding him back from achievement with all her problems.

She was losing her composure. Did Percy ever regret seeing her in that cafe two years ago?

Neptune walked over to Reyna and put a hand on her shoulder. "It's not what you think. You provided my son with a reason to live. When he showed up to you two years ago…he had nobody to lean on. He was in a terrible crisis. You were there for him when he needed something to hold on to in this world."

Neptune grabbed Reyna's hand and placed Riptide in it. "You were there for Perseus, when not even the almighty gods dared to be. I am eternally thankful to you."

Reyna wrapped her fingers around the pen and grasped it in her closed fist.

"I know no gift, I can ever offer will suffice. So here is one that I am very sure my son would've wanted you to have."

Neptune opened Reyna's hand to reveal in the place of Riptide was a golden wedding ring with a diamond and two emeralds set in the metal. A trident had been etched lightly into the diamond, the symbol of Neptune or as Reyna liked to think of it…Percy's symbol. She slid the ring onto her ring finger and it fit perfectly.

"Thank you, Lord Neptune."

The god scowled. "Enough with the formalities, Reyna. Besides, my name is Poseidon! God of the seven seas and also… the father of Percy Jackson! That title will go down in history, it'll be one that I can truly be proud of."

Reyna smiled. "It sounds good."

Poseidon smiled but then it wavered. "I want you to know that I don't have many children, Reyna, even less descendants. Just know that...if my granddaughter ever needs anything, I'm entitled to help her at least once."

Reyna took a step back and nearly fainted. "Granddaughter? What do you mean?"

He smiled. "The fates have spoken...your journey has yet to end. I wish you good fortunes in the fights to come, Reyna, daughter of Bellona."

A tear fell from her eye as she smiled. "Thank you, Lord Poseidon."

He smiled wholeheartedly and disappeared in a shower of mist, leaving Reyna alone in the water...with her unborn child, Percy Jackson's daughter.

* * *

 **POSEIDON**

The stories would have you believe that it was his youngest brother who bred the most offspring between the big three.

But the truth was that the sea god spawned more children than any one of his brothers. Maybe the reason behind it was that he was more susceptible to human emotions unlike any of his brothers. Hades was just as the stories described, dark and brooding, a hard mind to crack. Zeus on the other hand, his personality was too strong and he was often very direct with his words and emotions.

Poseidon's children came and went so often, it was almost as if time was purposely skipping over some of the most meaningful parts of life. It felt as if a day later after his child's birth, death had come to take its rightful claim on their bodies. A mortal's lifespan was completely insignificant to that of a gods. A couple years for a god is what a minute was for a human. Just a small fraction of time in their lives.

They each held their own spot within Poseidon's heart in a way. No matter what you think about this god, no matter the stories, Poseidon never forgot their names. Even the most wicked of his spawn were never forgotten but instead they shared a part within his soul...if he even had one.

Then there was Percy Jackson.

 _His strength in power must have been inherited from me,_ Neptune chuckled in the back of the god's mind. Having a dual personality was a real pain, sometimes he wasn't even there, blind to the events happening in Poseidon's world. Other times he was completely aware and would not shut up. Perseus's death was enough to jar the Roman from his slumber.

"My brother sends his deepest condolences," The young goddess, Artemis bowed at the foot of his throne in a gesture of respect and sympathy for the death of his child. "Percy Jackson has earned the respect of the hunt, from this day and everyday into eternity. He was truly a _different_ demigod, no other can possibly hope to live up to his legacy."

 _We must find the traitor,_ Neptune whispered. _The one that slayed your child, he has committed an act of treason upon Olympus. He has disrespected the both of us to the core, the deed shall not go unpunished!_

Poseidon simply nodded at Artemis' words. The goddess accepted the gesture and disappeared from the throne room in a silver shower of glitter.

Mars, the Roman god, stepped off his throne and bowed slightly at the foot of Poseidon's. "He was a noble warrior indeed, he has earned the respect of _both_ gods of war, Lord Poseidon. Even Ares has confessed that if it were not for the boy's sacrifices, Olympus would have fallen years ago."

 _Why has Ares not showed up to pay his respects himself?!_ Neptune roared. _He means to disrespect us both, by sending Mars?! Make the coward show his true face to us or I will tear his very essence out of this meat sack with my bare hands!_

Poseidon merely ignored his Roman counterparts thoughts.

"The young hero upheld the high standards and traditions of Rome until his very last day. May he forever rest peacefully in Elysium until eternity as he so deserves."

Poseidon nodded to the God of War, Mars accepted the gesture and rose, he erupted into a column of spinning red flames.

One by one, god after god, each paid Poseidon respects by saying kind words to the stone faced grieving father. Neptune on the other hand, stayed true to his reputation. The Roman god, shouted in the back of his head angrily.

Zeus merely watched from his throne, carefully observing with his keen eyes.

 _She_ was the last to come, the newest goddess to accept godhood and gain eternal admittance into Olympus, poked her figure through the giant gold doors.

The young goddess silently walked into the throne room, her steps were soft and almost unheard as she made her way to Zeus's throne carefully and cautiously, as if Poseidon were an animal ready to pounce and tear her to pieces. It wasn't so far from the truth.

Her white toga dragging behind her, the gold on her wrist shining brightly, she chose to remain the size of a normal mortal being rather than revealing the true height and stature of a Greek god.

Neptune had gone unnaturally quiet all of a sudden as soon as she bowed at the forefront of Zeus's throne and then turned to him and knelt at Poseidon's feet.

"I am...terribly sorry for your loss, Lord Poseidon." She spoke softly.

He rose from his throne, his fingers were just itching to use his trident. "The Architect of Olympus, _Annabeth Chase._ "

She brushed her gold locks back behind her ears and revealed bloodshot red eyes. "I don't believe that I need to tell you how great your son...Percy... really was. He always went above and beyond to show the world on a numerous different occasions, that he was a hero that deserved respect, he always made it look easy. Whenever there was a call to action, he always answered willingly. But this time I can't help but think what if I hadn't made the choices that I made...maybe things would have been different."

"Different? If men and gods could go back in time to rethink there choices, the world would be in a constant flux of change." Poseidon dragged his trident behind him as he took a step forward and looked down at the goddess. "Your very own hubris brought here, the very godhood you accepted is _controversial_ to say the least. The Architect of Olympus, what's next? Shall we make another one of Athena's spawn the all powerful Plumber of Olympus?"

 _Seems too worthy a title for Minerva's children,_ Neptune scoffed. _Virgin goddess my ass..._

"Your mother was in no position to be bestowing such gifts to a demigod...but the decision has been made. And had you been there with Perseus...maybe the fates would have chosen to go down another path. Maybe he would still be alive, but this world cannot survive on _maybes_ and _what if's_."

 _She couldn't have made a difference anyways,_ Neptune whispered.

"What's done is done." Poseidon took his seat. "My son's death cannot be reverted, without perverting the natural order that we have built, but his legacy will live on. Perseus has blessed the world with one last gift, his daughter has very large shoes to fill, but with the guidance of her strong willed mother... I am expecting an even greater hero."

Annabeth stood up, her eyes wide and her hand on her chest. "His daughter? Percy...he-"

He nodded. "The fates have spoken. His bloodline will continue to run it's course."

"I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't. It seems that there were greater matters at hand, buildings needed to be designed by someone no doubt."

"I understand if you blame me, Lord Pos-"

"You did not kill my son." He stopped her in her tracks with his sharp words. "The dark path you sent him on is entirely different situation altogether. Now leave me, Annabeth Chase. Before I offend your mother by smiting you where you kneel."

She did not argue. Just as she passed the golden doors, she turned back and faced Poseidon. "I will make this right, Lord Poseidon. I swear it."

 _Should we curse her?_ Neptune asked. _We can have one of those very large doors fall on her face..._

Poseidon looked to his brother who had remained uncharacteristically silent all this time.

 _Look at him just sitting there, not a care in the world._

It was after she left that Poseidon finally broke the silence. "Is it true?"

 _Is what true? Are you holding back on me, Poseidon?!_

"I am not omniscient, Poseidon. If you are expecting an answer, you would be best to clarify your next question." Zeus replied as he scratched at the arm rests of his mighty throne.

Poseidon rose and slammed the butt of his trident onto the ceramic tiles with a crushing CRACK! "We established that all prophecies concerning the fate of Olympus, be laid bare on the floor of the council for us all to act on act upon at once? Is that not the very reason why the council even exists? To establish and maintain an everlasting balance and order across the universe!"

 _This sounds interesting...Holding back prophecies now, Jupiter?_

Zeus merely scoffed. "Should I have every single outrageous prophecy of the millions that the prophets conjure, brought up to the council?"

"You know which prophecy I am talking about!" Poseidon roared angrily as his green eyes glowed. "No one god should have the power to decide what what happens to Olympus and those who look up to us with worship!"

"I am not one god! I am the King of the Gods! I alone have the authority to do as I please and I will not be undermined by anyone who cannot began to understand the reasoning behind the decisions that I am forced to make every second of every day."

"Our father said the same thing before he swallowed his children whole, little brother."

"You dare compare me to Kronos?" A chilling feeling crept into the air. There was power in names, even the dead ones. "I would never have released you from that prison if I had become anything remotely similar to the beast. You should think about that before you come at me with these wild accusations."

"They are not so wild, brother. Apollo has taken to the shadows, hasn't he? Why is that? Is he afraid that you will punish him once again for unleashing another world ending prophecy to the world?"

"You would think that a child of mine would have learned the first time." Zeus muttered.

"I spoke to the fates." Poseidon snapped.

Zeus stood from his throne. "You did what?"

"The fates revealed the existence of the prophecy to me. How could you lie to us?"

"There is no such prophecy!" Zeus roared and thunder boomed through the skies. "Not anymore. Olympus has stood the test of time, against a multitude of threats. We are the rulers of yesterday, we are the rulers of today, and the rulers of the future! Men fear us, Titans fear us! There are no more challenges to my claim on the throne or your precious claim over the sea! I have made sure of it."

"You have seen the power of the Eye at work just as I did, seventy six hours ago! How can you ignore this critical event as if it were just some insignificant accident!"

"Because that's exactly what it is, Poseidon!"

"Do not treat me a fool! It is the power of something greater at work!"

"It was nothing, your boy brought it upon himself and look where he ended up!"

"You dare insult my child?"

"Don't make this something it is not."

"It was Ouranos!"

"I could not allow him to take back everything I have worked so hard to maintain!"

"So you admit it!"

"Yes I admit! I admit hiding the prophecy because I know the tricks! I know that there is no trying to change the future because the future is set in stone! But this time it was different, the prophecy was clear of the god forsaken riddles. I control what happens in my universe! Not any man or prophet. I am the one that released the beasts, that killed your boy, from the pits of Tartarus! Because I knew that if your child had not died, the power of Ouranos would have been unleashed to the world, just as he did in the beginning. I'd be damned if that primordial psychopath was brought back from death."

 _He has killed our son._

"You had my child killed?"

Zeus grumbled. "If he had lived, he would have brought the eye here to Olympus...and then the strength of Ouranos would have been unleashed right onto our doorsteps. Just as the prophecy revealed. I could not happen. It would not happen. So yes, I unleashed the long forgotten beasts back into the mortal world."

 _This act is...unforgivable._

Neptune was right.

"My child?" Poseidon felt anger rushing through his body like a tide.

Zeus could sense the inevitable fight coming, his master bolt had appeared in his grasp. "Do not act so sentimental. You have watched your children die before, what makes this one so different?"

"You would not have a throne if it were not for Percy Jackson..."

Poseidon held his trident in his tight grip, his eyes became merciless as his skin began to glow from the inside. His skin stripped strip away as he began to reveal his true form, a colossal mass of pure energy.

The king of the gods watched grimly as his brother charged at him with the full force of a god.

From the distance, the throne room was lit up as if two miniature atomic bombs had been set off. What happened next could only be described as...destruction. Zeus's master bolt rocked the skies in a spectacular fashion. Olympus nearly tore itself in half as powers of unimaginable strength clashed through the heavens.


	4. Chapter 4

**REYNA**

 _2 YEARS BEFORE THE INCIDENT_

Why were monster's always trying to kill demigods?

She understood that the two species were just two different sides to the same coin. It was the natural order and blah, blah, blah, just the same old cookie-cutter crap excuse.

Was it because they tasted delicious? If that's the case, Reyna had to call bullshit. Half the times when monsters would hunt demigods, she was willing to bet that those demigods are always covered in blood, sweat and tears! Or maybe those were just the key ingredients to a tasty half-blood pot roast in some three hundred thousand year old monsters cookbook.

In any case, Reyna knew her life in the mortal world would have it's challenges and there wasn't really a guarantee that she would make it to her apartment doorsteps in one piece every single night. But the one thing that she knew that was one hundred percent a _guarantee_ , was that if she called up Percy with a time pressing or life threatening issue, he always pulled through for her. She liked that about him.

Then again he wasn't always so keen and upbeat about it either. One time Reyna gave him an urgent phone call because she believed that the stray dog she brought home earlier that day was possessed by the spirit of Pluto. Percy nearly committed her into a hospital for the mentally disturbed after staying up for three consecutive hours on the phone trying to talk her down from that wild theory. In her defense, she was pretty sure that the English bulldog was growling in perfect Latin and plotting with her upstairs neighbor who looked suspiciously like a gorgon in disguise.

Every so often there was a real emergency that she couldn't handle alone. This time around it was an army of these enormous spider/cockroach hybrid monstrosities that chased her from her tenant building around two in the morning in nothing but her sweats and tank top. The winter breeze was absolutely horrible, but her body heated up and drenched her in sweat.

Percy dragged her by her arm through the pitch black of Burnham Park, they were followed closely by the internal screeching roars of monsters scowering every inch of the area for her like a blood hungry mob. He was nearly out of breath after half an hour of running in the dark with no shoes. That was Reyna's fault of course, she came crashing through his apartment door and basically dragged him out of bed.

"Reyna," Percy huffed, his hair blowing wildly in the sharp cold wind. "You know I like being your friend and everything...but next time you show up to my apartment, can it be to just hang out and binge some crappy Netflix TV show like normal people?"

Reyna laughed wholeheartedly, she was running at a slower speed now due to the fact she could feel terrible blisters poking at the bottom of the feet. "I had taken charge of the situation, and I didn't even mean to show up to your house, honestly. Hell, I didn't know that you lived just down the street from me! Speaking of living situations, how on Earth did you end up picking a place so close to mine? I don't think I ever told you where I lived."

She stopped in her tracks and put her hands on her hips. "Have you been following me?"

Percy slid to a halt and just looked at her like she was crazy. "Are you serious? No offense to you, but why on earth would I want to stalk you? Do you know how long it takes to find a decent apartment in Chicago?"

Aurum and Argentum were no longer around to be Reyna's personal lie detectors, so she just had to go with her gut and say that Percy was probably telling the truth. "All this time that we've been talking and texting, you could've just walked down the street."

Percy laughed and dragged her by the hand as the silhouettes of a group of monsters began to shift from the darkness. "Hey, it's not my fault. I wasn't going to ask you for your home address so soon. I was thinking maybe after the third date."

"Third date? Was there a first and second date that I'm not aware of?" Reyna questioned as she came to yet another stop and tugged at Percy's hand in mid-run.

Percy smiled at her and then looked past her to see the monsters tearing through the trees about eight hundred yards back. "Yeah, I kind of figured every time we went monster hunting, that counted as a date."

Reyna didn't find the joke funny. "If you're going to consider this a date, I'd much rather have an actual proposal be presented."

His smile faded as he suddenly got nervous. "Oh, are you serious? I mean is now really the time to do it? It's kinda very cold, and I count even feel my toes anymore, plus there's the fact that we have a very small army of demigod-eating monsters closing in our trail right about now-"

"I'm just kidding!" Reyna laughed, she loved messing with him. He was just so gullible at moments. "Gods sometimes it's not even fun."

"Maybe later, though." Percy smirked as he swung her hand back an forth. "Since you so kindly offered."

"I didn't make an offer." She scoffed, but she could feel the butterflies in her stomach contradicting her. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't lie, when was the last time you were in a _real_ relationship anyway?" Percy asked jokingly.

Reyna crossed her arms and shivered slightly in the cold wind. "When was the last time _you_ were in a relationship?"

Percy had a sour look on his face like he was thinking, are you serious? "Don't change the subject, Queen Bee. You know exactly when my last relationship was."

"Has it really been that long since you...you know...hit the sack with another person?" Reyna snickered aloud.

Percy turned beet red under the moonlight, this would forever be a touchy subject for the opposite sex and Reyna just loved to exploit it. An eight legged monster jumped from the treetops but he sliced it midair with his glowing bronze sword.

"Why are you laughing?" He retorted as monster dust drizzled from the sky like a light rain. "You still have a chance to be the oldest member in Artemis's pack!"

 _He couldn't possibly know that!_ Reyna thought to herself. _He's just trying to get under my skin._

Reyna stomped towards Percy angrily. "How dare-you don't know what you're talking about!"

He laughed like what she had said was a joke, and that deeply annoyed her. "Reyna, please. Just based on the look on your face alone, I can figure out every one of your deepest darkest secrets."

She shifted uncomfortably as he studied her with those bright green eyes. _Dammit, he probably could_. Another monster slowly creeped out of the treetops and nearly decapitated Percy but Reyna tossed a gold dagger with deadly precision without even so much as a side way glance.

She crossed her arms . "I led the Twelfth Legion for years. I succeeded by never letting a single emotion compromise my leadership, so I highly doubt that you can _read_ me, Percy."

Percy scoffed and crossed his arms smugly. "I figured it out, the day you broke up with your ex and you called me to talk about it. The guy was sent to the hospital for blunt trauma to his _very_ holy parts. Most likely by a pair of steel toed boots, and I wonder who do I know that likes to wear steel toes?"

"He was...grabby." Reyna couldn't help but smirk at the memory.

Percy laughed. "I'm sure he deserved it."

"He did."

"What about the next guy?" He said in a passive tone.

"If there ever is a next." Reyna snapped back.

"You sound so sure."

"I am sure, because at this rate, there won't be."

"Really?" He was smiling now.

She leaned closer to Percy just inches from his face, then she slapped him softly on the cheeks. "Get your head out of the clouds, Percy. We're surrounded."

Percy scowled. He looked around and noticed the treetops were filled with hundreds of monsters. What the both of them hadn't realized was that the monsters had created a circular cage from web. They were trapped.

"What did you do to piss these guys off in the first place, Reyna?" Percy asked followed by a huge sigh.

"There was a spider in my apartment and I killed it with my sandal." Reyna reached for her knife but it was no longer on her person. "I think it was a friend of theirs maybe."

"I swear to the gods, Reyna. How about...if we make it out of this alive, which at this point our chances could go either way...maybe you and I can go out sometimes. Maybe we can do something that doesn't involve anything supernatural or magical?"

Reyna looked up at Percy and smiled. "How about we just go to a restaurant sometime?"

Percy handed Reyna her golden dagger that she had thrown at a monster a little while back. "Right after this, if you're feeling up to it?"

"I left all my cash, back home. But I'm sure we can figure something out..." Reyna couldn't help but smiled so hard that her face began to hurt.

When you look past all the monsters, Reyna began to believe that today was a good day.

* * *

 **PERCY**

 _10 MONTHS BEFORE THE INCIDENT_

He stared into the mirror intensely. By the gods, Percy was starting to look like his dad with every day that he got older.

Every now and again he would pass a reflection from a window or mirror and almost jump up into a idiotic form of joy, thinking that his father had come to visit him. But he hadn't heard from the old man in over two years, so it was starting to get very annoying.

 _Its the facial hair,_ Percy thought to himself. _It's gotta go._

Before he threw on his shirt he walked into the bathroom and used a razor to shave off the goatee. _By the gods, I look like a kid._

"So I heard someone has finally taken up Frank's spot as Praetor of Camp Jupiter." Percy said as he began buttoning up his freshly ironed whit blouse in front of the mirror. "A ten year old daughter of Venus."

"Ten years old?" Reyna exclaimed, her voice echoing from the walk-in closet. "Imagine what she had to do to get the position at that age. She probably wrestled a pack of hell hounds to ground with her bare hands."

"She's barely old enough to get on some of the rides at an amusement park, but isn't it even more amazing that she's a kid of Venus?" Percy said as he struggled with his black tie. "The goddess of love."

"Don't underestimate Venus." Reyna said as a loud thud came from inside the closet, it was probably her tripping on her own heels. Percy knew that she always had trouble wearing those things. "Crazy things happen in the name of love, the Trojan War for instance. It's the world's most dangerous emotion."

"I beg to differ." Percy fumbled with the uneven knot of his tie in frustration, he threw his arms down in frustration and groaned. A light knocking came from his window, it was a small white dove poking its beak against the clear glass from the outside window seal. Its small black beady eyes seemed to be glaring at him, angrily. Percy stared back at the little white bird. A message from Aphrodite maybe? He stuck his tongue out at the dove. He swore the bird squinted at him before it flew away and pooped on his window. Disgusting.

"I personally think that hunger, takes the cake in the dangerous emotions category." Percy muttered.

"Hunger is not an emotion-Gods you're an idiot." Reyna laughed as she swung the door open and took a step into the room. "Now...How do I look?"

Percy's fingers began to ache after so many minutes spent fumbling with the tie, which some how ended up looking more like a noose. Reyna walked out clumsily on her golden high heels. He could see her reflection in the mirror and whipped around so fast. Beautiful, was the only word that came to his mind. The rest were just a bunch of synonyms that got the point across.

Reyna stood in front of him with her hands on her hips. She looked like a Roman goddess, it was just unreal how beautiful someone could be and not be an immortal being. What amazed Percy was just the natural beauty of her, she wore no makeup but she just had a glow to herself, an ethereal beauty. She wore a long beautiful purple dress that split halfway up the side of her legs. A golden necklace shaped like a golden wreath draped around her neck and her straight black hair flowed past her shoulders, well complimenting her regal majestic frame.

Her name, Reyna, meant queen in Spanish. That's exactly what she was to him. His queen...not in a weird kinky way at least.

"You shaved? You look like you're seventeen all over again." Reyna smiled and walked slowly and carefully towards him in sort of a hobble. "I'm guessing that the stupid expression on your face means I look somewhat decent."

"Decent? You look absolutely stunning." Percy said finally breaking free from his dumbfounded state.

"I wish I could say the same about you right now." She said pointing at the noose wrapped around his neck.

She grabbed him by the tie and pulled him closer. "Twenty five years old, and you still can't make a decent Windsor knot."

"Well I was more busy learning how to swing a sword." Percy retorted with a smirk.

Reyna looked into his eyes and fixed his tie, without even glancing at it. "Not much jobs require sword swinging nowadays."

"No, but it's a skill that'll keeps us alive."

"That it will." She said as she finished off the tie with one last loop. "But the chances of another war happening in our lifetime, it's almost astronomical. We can stay vigilant like always, but the days of fighting battles are behind us. No more dragon slaying quests or god rescuing escapades."

Percy grabbed her hand. "Not to be a downer or anything but we both know that the fighting never really _ends_. It's never really safe for us, no matter where we go. I feel like the mortal world is just a video game. One day, Mario is out there saving Princess Peach but the very next day she's out there being kidnapped by Bowser all over again. A sickening cycle of _boredom_."

As spoke he couldn't help but remember something that had been told to him not too long ago. Something that was haunting the back of his brain like a sickness that just couldn't be cured.

"There's always New Rome," Reyna suggested pulling him out of his deep thoughts.

Percy raised an eyebrow. New Rome? With Reyna? The thought had crossed his mind but he was never really sure if Reyna had felt the same as he did.

"A safe haven." Percy smiled. "I thought you like living out here in the city."

"I do, but no more getting chased by monsters through the forest in the middle of the night." She said cheekily. "What's not to like about that."

"Well that was more your problem than it was mine." Percy joked as he held her by the hips and admired her beautiful eyes. "So you and me. Camp Jupiter. Retiring. That is an opportunity I wouldn't miss for the world."

He looked down into the piercing black eyes, her gaze didn't seem to be as challenging as they once used to be. Usually she seemed guarded and always on the alert but as of recently he couldn't explain the change in her personality. She seemed at peace...

"And I'm sure everyone would love to see the _legendary_ Percy Jackson, in person. I've heard you've become quite a big deal at Camp Jupiter, you know." She said with a smile. "They even have a statue for you, a small plastic one that they sell at the gift shops, but a statue nonetheless...it's an action figure really."

Percy laughed, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in for a kiss. "I don't want people treating me different, Reyna. I'm just like everyone else. The only difference is...I have you now."

"How sweet...Now come on, Percy, were going to be late," Reyna laughed and broke away. "Tonight's the only night that Leo's house is within our orbit for the next year."

Percy scowled at the thought of it. "That thing is not a house, it's a fiery explosion just waiting to happen."

He slipped on his black coat and walked with Reyna out the front door. They were greeted by a golden chariot being pulled by four white pegasi on the black asphalt of their street.

"He's sure making a big spectacle out of this." Reyna said.

"Well that's Leo for you." Percy replied. "At least its not being pulled by metal dragons again. That last time was terrifying."

"I know, right. Now come on and help me," She said taking his hand in hers. "Last time I tried walking in these, it turned out to be a very bad day."

* * *

"You've really outdone yourself." Percy said as he peered over the edge of the flying fortress which floated on the edge of Earth's atmosphere. He tried not to linger to close to the border, if it came to it, Percy knew he would not make it to the ground alive. He'd probably get struck a couple dozen times by Zeus's lightning bolts and have a heart attack before he ever had the chance to hit the concrete on his street in Chicago. "It's really amazing."

If you looked down you could almost see the entire western hemisphere shining like a million fireflies along the face of the green planet surrounded by the endless blackness which was space. This was the greatest invention of all time, how Leo even began to manage to create this godly thing, was beyond Percy's thinking.

Leo smirked. "This bad boy right here is named _The Palladium_. At first I was thinking about just renting a house in Malibu and steampunk the crap out of it. Me and the wifey could do a little surfing, or have nice walks on the beach under the moonlight while sipping on margaritas. But then again, its not very exciting is it?'"

"Is it magic?" Jason asked as he dangled his feet off the edge of the green grass. Percy figured that he would be the only guy that wasn't scared of the far fall back to the ground. "The last time we came aboard this thing, it barely lifted off the ground maybe a hundred feet or so."

"I remember that, but there is no magic," Leo said with a devilish twinkle in his eyes. "It's pure _child of Hephaestus_ ingenuity and mind bending science and mathematics. The ground under our feet is being propelled through the sky by twelve giant enchanted celestial bronze plated rockets and turbines but no...not any magic. There's also a protective force field that wraps around the perimeter keeping in the oxygen and kinda maybe keeps people from falling if you don't mind the thousand volts of electricity."

Frank grabbed Percy by the shoulders and playfully nudged him towards the edge. "Don't get too close, Percy. Not everyone can fly like this lightning charged Superboy over here."

Jason laughed as he stood up and adjusted his navy blue suit jacket. Percy's heart had nearly jumped out of his rib cage, Frank's small nudges felt more like a quarterback tackling him from behind.

"Don't worry, Perce." Leo said and tapped him on the back. "I tied a net to a couple of drones a thousand feet down maybe, programmed to catch any strays that wander too far off the reservoir and somehow make it past the electric barrier. They have a...forty-six percent successful catch rate."

Percy frowned. "That isn't very reassuring. Not even a little, man."

"If you do fall, I'm sure there's a puddle down there somewhere, you can dive into." Frank joked, the guy looked even buffer in his maroon colored suit than the last time he'd seen him a year ago. Percy figured he'd could've thrown him off the Palladium with one hand like a football if he really wanted to.

Percy smiled nervously and backed up slowly towards a more safe distance. "I'm really digging the view and all, Leo but how 'bout we go inside...where its less deadly. The girls are probably waiting for us to get back."

Leo tugged on his suspenders and grinned. "Sure, whatever you say, bro."

They all made their way towards the giant forty room mansion a couple hundred yards in the distance. A beautiful gray Scottish Baronial castle-like piece of architecture, with a large stone fountain outside the front door and an even more impressive botanical garden similar to something the gods themselves would cook up on Mount Olympus, it was jaw-dropping.

"You guys go on inside," Leo told Jason and Frank. "I need to speak to Percy real quick."

They nodded and walked through the castles front doors leaving the duo behind.

"You know this place of yours, it really does make Mount Olympus look like a roadside motel in comparison." Percy complimented.

Thunder boomed in the distance, which seemed physically impossible considering how high they were.

Leo looked at Percy and scowled. "Are you trying to get us knocked out of the sky, bro? This bad boy would crack like an egg against Mother Earth's face and wipe out everything within a five mile radius like a giant flaming meteor. You know the gods are sensitive about their egos. But hell, you are right. I'm an _artist_."

Percy turned towards the edge and admired the view once more. "The gods don't have any power here. But you've figured that out already, I'm guessing?"

"The land beyond the gods, it's more than just Alaska now." Leo said with a well deserved proud look on his face. "The Palladium is now one of the few places that lives outside of the Olympians realm of power."

"Not only the gods...but the fates too." Percy said with a hint of admiration to what Leo created. "You could literally stay up here for the rest of your life and not have to worry about a thing. This is the Garden of Eden."

"Look Percy." Leo was speaking in a smaller voice now. "I hate being the buzzkill, I mean you can stay here for as long as you want. But the gods...they always find away. I don't know how but the prophecies always find away of coming true. My guess is that it all comes down to a person's shitty luck. You...always seem to pick the short straw, bro."

"I just thought after all these years, things would be different." Percy said grimly. "I figured after Annabeth left us, nothing could possibly get any worse. It couldn't possibly get any more darker in rock bottom then this."

Leo looked over to the mansions bright lights shining towards the heavens. "Does Reyna know about it?"

"The prophecy?" Percy could see her standing on the balcony of the third floor, she waved down at him. She had this beautiful glow to her, her beauty shined bright like a star. "I haven't gotten around to telling her."

Leo waved back to her. "Well its not exactly like I have much experience in this department, so you don't necessarily need to listen to me, but you should probably tell her."

"I can't it'll only worry her." Percy said. "Plus me and her have plans. Were going to move into New Rome soon. Retire. Something along those lines."

Leo clapped his hands and punched him in the shoulder. "That's what I'm talking about, bro! I always did ship you two. Everyone was like, _ooh Percabeth is totally where it's at!_ And I was all like _ah hell nah, Preyna all the way!_ "

Percy laughed but his mind quickly fell back into a state of worry. "Heading to Camp Jupiter may even strengthen the chances of this prophecy coming true..."

"This prophecy may not even be our problem! A problem for another generation of demigods to ponder over." Leo said with an upbeat tone and rubbed his hands together, they smoked as if they were about to catch fire.

Percy smirked, he could be right. Then again, there was also a time when they had the same thoughts about the Second Great Prophecy. We all know what happened there. "You know what, you're probably right."

Leo grinned wildly, his hair began to crawl with small red flames. "Of course I am! Now come on man, lets go have a nice party."

"Yeah, lets go." Percy followed Leo to the front steps.

But he couldn't help but look back, he felt as if someone were whispering his name. A shiver creeped down his spine and he felt nervous energy tingle down into his fingertips. He looked up at the endless space above them.

The heavens seemed to shift, it was alive and breathing.

Looking down at him whispering into his ears.

Percy's head began to spin. His mind kept on thinking back to the first line of the new prophecy...

 _As the end of your watch grows near, heavens breath is made loud and clear._

Why was this prophecy revealed to him? Why did Apollo himself have to drill the lines into his mind just before he disappeared?

It had to be about Percy.

By the gods... Reyna was going to be so angry with him.


	5. Chapter 5

**REYNA**

 _ONE MONTH AND A HALF SINCE THE INCIDENT_

It felt like she never left.

"It's still the same old city that you know and love." Said Frank, he must've been reading her mind as he handed her a cup of freshly brewed hot chocolate that he bought from a kind street vendor. "It's still home. The hot chocolate is amazing as always, Terminus is still a little overzealous of course, the Fifth Cohort smells like sweaty socks. All the pesky things that made Camp Jupiter home are still here. Although...without you around, its different. I miss having you as the praetor by my side, working with me to keep the Senate in check. That's not saying that our replacements aren't doing their jobs, because they've probably had more peacetime now, then we ever did."

They walked through the city streets side by side, two retired Praetors, it sure did garner a lot of attention from the residents. People would stop and say hello and occasionally have small chats with them. They loved to say that the city never knew peace as much as when these two demigods were in positions of power. Reyna knew it was nothing more than a blissful little lie. She could barely keep her sanity from melting like a marshmallow when she was in that position.

"I should feel happy being here," Reyna admitted, which actually took a lot of effort to say. She hated talking about her feelings, especially considering all that happened to her recently. She didn't like talking to anybody who wasn't... _him_. "I mean I'm very happy being back in New Rome, this is my home. It's just that..."

"You expected to return under different circumstances. With someone else." Frank finished her sentence as he stared somberly across the sea of happy people. "I understand."

"I don't think you could." Reyna replied with more hostility than she intended. She regretted the tone almost instantly.

She knew that the topic of her late boyfriend would come up eventually. Not a conversation of choice that she would prefer talking about, the loss still left a deep hole of anguish in her heart that no amount of blissful nostalgia could fill. The only thing that pushed her forward everyday, pushing Reyna to take that very first step off her bed and back into the gritty reality that she lived in, was her unborn child.

Her baby girl. A secret to everyone else other than the gods.

She didn't know how long she could keep the masquerade going, but just a little while longer she hoped. At least until she could work out some things in her life and finally make it habitable enough for a child. But the baby bump was already on it's way.

 _Gods I'm going to get fat,_ she thought to herself.

Reyna didn't even know what she was going to name her. Hell, she never thought she'd have a chance to name a child, much less give birth. She was completely terrified of the thought.

Frank stopped in his tracks. He was dressed like a club bouncer, black t-shirt and pants with a pair of nice Jordan sneakers, but the man that he had grown to be over the years was very intimidating, six foot three and muscular enough to be an semiprofessional body builder. His many years of being the Praetor of Camp Jupiter had given him a more hardened face than the very first day she met him. His experiences forced him to become a entirely different person since then. All except for those soft eyes, brown and filled with nothing but trusting kindness.

Reyna tried to understand how he must have been feeling. Her late partner and Frank shared a bond of brotherhood that was created in some of the lowest points in both of their lives. He was there for Frank when he needed a friend to trust with his life or death secret. Frank was there for him when he had nobody else to turn to in a hostile unforgiving new world.

"Reyna, I don't pretend to know exactly what it is you're going through." Frank sighed and fumbled with fingers like it was stuck in a Chinese finger trap. "You were closer to him than any of us, I could never imagine the unbearable pain if I ever lost Hazel...I wouldn't be able to push through the days like you can. But here we all are...we all lost him that day. Hazel...gods, she was...is still devastated of the fact."

"I know, Frank. I'm sorry I didn't mean to..." Reyna noticed a small memorial along the sidewalk. More than hundreds of names were engraved into marble following the very path that they followed, commemorating the thousands of soldiers killed in various battles. Her name should have ended up on this list years ago. "It's just that he always seemed invincible. No matter the situation... he always made it back alive. I feel like he loved making Death work harder for his money."

Frank chuckled. "He was a very stubborn guy. We all knew that."

"You don't know the half of it." Reyna smiled softly, she curled her fingers along the bottom of her cup of hot chocolate. It was still warm. "You know, I never met my mother. But one Christmas about a year and a half ago, he wanted to get me something really special. He tracked down Bellona somewhere in the mortal world and had a talk with her, it was a gun store in Alabama, I think. She said that she knew there was one thing that Percy could get me that I really would love, but she said the only way to get the gift was to complete a quest. He never once told me what the quest was, but I know it was terrible because, that Christmas morning, he showed up to my apartment door without any hair on his face, it had been singed to the roots, and he held this bouquet of enchanted white roses that were lit with beautiful blue flames that would never die out unless the person who they were gifted to... stopped loving them. The species of flowers died with the witch Circe supposedly. But he found them for me. They burn bright still to this day."

Frank smiled, he tossed his empty cup into a trash can. "Nothing surprises me there, it sounds like something that the man would do, bringing an extinct flower back to life. He would put his mind to a task and didn't stop until it was finished. Kind of like the Legion's new Praetor. Adriana, she's been expecting you for a while now." He nodded towards the monumental three story coliseum gleaming in the distance. An architectural marvel, that paid homage to the actual one across the world in Rome, something only the true heir to the Roman empire could build.

"Expecting?" Reyna asked clearly a bit confused, she'd only just arrived here forty five minutes ago. She hadn't even dropped her luggage off at the inn since she got here. Now that Reyna thought of it, where was her stuff? "She wants to meet me? I was under the impression that I was just here for some sort of celebration."

"Of course, you're here to see the games, but they're still the same brutal pissing contests that you and I sat through a dozen times over. Just to let you in on a little secret..." Frank leaned towards her and began to whisper, "Don't tell her that I told you, but Adriana plans on offering you some sort of role here at Camp Jupiter. My guess is that the gladiator match is just a way to fill you with nostalgia and thus making it easier to bring you back home, I'm pretty sure she's a fan of your work."

"Please tell me you're joking." Reyna said with a slight smile. "What's there to be a fan about? This ten year old girl is the Praetor of Camp Jupiter, she's probably accomplished more than I ever had."

There was no shortage of stories about this relatively new warrior, but off the top of her head Reyna couldn't really recall any of them. Other than the fact that she some how earned the title of the youngest Praetor the Twelfth Legion has ever appointed. No easy feat considering how tough these people could be. It truly looked good on her behalf.

"She's twelve actually." Frank smiled and kicked a soccer ball that had rolled right in front of his feet towards a group of children playing in the distant field. "Adriana...she is not like anyone you've ever met, Reyna. Trust me."

She highly doubted that. Reyna met plenty of people of all the sorts, evil, average and extraordinary. But who knows, the fates loved to surprise her.

The two demigods walked over the bustling crowded hills to the magnificent golden coliseum. An imposing Roman construct that radiated power and respect from all who set their eyes on it. The extraordinary marble engraved stone gave credit to the architect who built it decades ago, he was clearly dedicated to making something worthy to the gods. Giant archways wrapped around the arena starting at the bottom to the top in rows of threes.

As they got closer, the crowds got bigger. Roman demigods, legacies, lares, fauns, almost everyone that called New Rome home made way to the imposing structure. One faun was trotting around without a shirt holding large thumbs up gloves, his belly had the name 'ZHANG' painted on it complete with red and white face paint. It seemed like everybody was hyped about the games today.

Eerily enough, the statues of the gods stared down at Reyna from the top archways. They looked at her in sort of a ' _what are you doing here?_ ', type of way. A sign maybe? She shouldn't be here without him, Percy was supposed to be here with her...

Frank made his way to a small sectioned off part of the outer arena, where it seemed like all of the competitors were getting prepared under the shade of a giant vibrant oak tree, that almost hid the sky under all of its great magnificence.

Reyna followed him as he began to walk towards the group of people putting on their leather armor and polishing their swords from all the blood that was left over from previous battles or possible beheadings.

It had been a while longer since she carried a sword in her very own hands, than she'd like to admit. Roman's understood that they always needed to expand their knowledge and experience with a blade. So it only made Reyna seem more of an outsider here on her home turf.

The years of callouses and blisters looked like they had finally healed to be a bit softer on her hands, just like they used to be when she was just a young girl living on Circe's Island giving magical seaweed facial wraps to castaways.

"Yo, Arthur!" Frank called out, he waved his muscular arm in the air to catch the kid's attention.

A young boy a couple years younger than Frank, from what she could tell, around eighteen years old; looked up from tightening the straps to his old brown chest plate.

Reyna learned she could tell a lot about a warrior based on his weapon and armor. This, Arthur, carried two three foot long imperial gold swords holstered on his back in an x-fashion. That meant two different possibilities, either, one: he used those two swords to his advantage as a method to intimidate his opponent without relying on actual skill to win the fight, or two: he is proficient and deadly with those blades enough as a swordsman that he is able to balance the two swords with ease making it easier for both offense and defense. As for his armor and helm, they seemed relatively old in terms of weariness, probably issued to him months ago. But not a scratch on it.

Based on a quick overall estimation of the man, he seemed like someone to watch out for.

Brown curls fell in front of his chiseled face allowing Reyna to see only one of his sharp hazel colored eyes. They seemed somewhat mesmerizing to say the least. Probably a descendant of Apollo, she guessed.

"Frank!" Arthur and Frank gave each other a friendly half hug and patted one another on the back, in a bro-ship type a way, if that's what you could call it. "Long time no see, brother!"

"Good to see you, man." Frank said enthusiastically. "Oh! Hey, let me introduce you to-"

"Reyna Ramirez Arellano." Arthur looked at her with those distracting hazel eyes. She could swear that this youngster was checking her out as he shook hands with her. He was seriously giving out _'Kick my sorry ass, until I'm choking on my own lungs'_ vibes. "My oh my, come on, Frank. How could I not know who this absolutely stunning woman is? Who hasn't heard of the greatest praetor the Twelfth Legion Fulminata has ever known."

"Former praetor." Reyna corrected him, there was a slickness to the boys words that seemed glazed over by the compliment. "And you are?"

"Arthur Cain." He introduced himself as he pursed his lips. "Centurion to the First Cohort, ma'am."

 _He's inviting me to punch him_ , Reyna mused with an unimpressed smile.

Frank was grinning as if the two demigods were getting along perfectly. But she got the idea that the way that Arthur was staring at her wasn't out of kindness, instead he examined Reyna as she would an enemy that he would soon have to fight out on a battlefield. "Reyna, you are now meeting the greatest swordsman to have ever lived in the past one hundred years."

"That's an awfully big claim," Reyna faked a kind smile, of course the first person that came into mind was her late partner. She knew that he was truly the only man to ever hold his own with that title.

"But a true claim none the less." Frank countered. Why was he so intent on making this guy seem like he was someone important?

"You're too kind." Arthur smiled, he held his chin up high in a way subconsciously screaming to the world that he enjoyed the praise. Of course _he_ would. "We both know that I'm only so good because I had you to teach me."

"You're too humble." Frank replied he patted Arthur on the shoulder.

Reyna wondered if Frank was going to start kissing the guy's feet next. "Have you ever fought in an actual battle?" She asked him, as she twisted her wedding ring. Reyna bet that if she whipped out Riptide, this kid wouldn't last five minutes in a one to one duel with her. But she couldn't risk getting hurt in a fight. Although something about kicking this kid's ass inside out made her smile in her head.

 _Am I being too harsh?_ She thought. Reyna was just meeting him, but there was just something about him...

Arthur turned to look at her with a smile and squinted curious eyes. "No, I can't say that I have had the pleasure, ma'am. All of the more _veteran_ fighters had finished the wars before I came along."

The way that he said veteran, with that southern accent as he examined her from head to toe, made Reyna think that this guy was trying to call her _old_. She didn't like that one bit.

"The battle field is where a fighter's skill is truly tested." Reyna said studying the single stripe on Arthur's forearm, but the mark of his godly ancestor was covered by the straps to his gauntlets. This Matthew McConaughey rip off was starting to seem like a mix of of Apollo and Mercury. "It's in our blood to be warriors. Even still, I've seen good men and women break in the face of death. No matter how prepared you are for the fog of war. Nothing will ever compare to the fear that you'll come to really know when the enemies blade is stabbed towards your heart."

"I'm sure Arthur would do just fine." Frank interjected. "Some of the most interesting fights, I've seen involved this guy."

Reyna's smile was getting harder and harder to keep up. "Of course they were."

"You know that's load of bull, Zhang."

The sharp comment came from the young girl in a black military inspired jacket, sharpening her gold sword as she sat underneath the oak tree's cool shade. The booming bass of a rap song that she was playing on her Bluetooth speaker shook the ground, Jaden Smith's _Icon_ played heavily as if it were her theme song.

The fiery red eyed girl was wearing a pair of designer round lensed sunglasses. She looked up and you could see something lurking behind those shades, but they weren't red...or even eyes, rather in their place were purple blazing flames in her eye sockets. Reyna involuntarily flinched at her sockets, it must have been some sort of magical effect kind of like Thalia's shield, Aegis. A truly disturbing trait that must've been handed down to her from her father...

Reyna saw Frank's agitated movements from the corner of her eyes. If his facial expression could speak it'd be saying, _Really? This again?_

Reyna raised an eyebrow. "I'm guessing you think that you're the better fighter?"

"You're goddamn right, I do." The fierce chick jumped to her feet and slid her gold sword into the sheath hanging on her belt. "Pretty boy over here, thinks he's a good fighter. The truth is...he's just good at picking _who_ he wants to fight. He's a _fake_."

The way she slowly paced herself to meet Arthur face to face, Reyna made note of how the girl's every aggressive step seemed to make Arthur's left hand twitch nervously. "You've got some nerve, Miss Kaylee. You should go back to the First Cohort with that made up bull crap." Arthur snapped in absolute disgust.

"Did you just call me a liar, dove boy?" Her flaming eyes burned dark red now instead of purple. Reyna flinched, her hands clenched into a ball as the blood in her veins got hotter and started pumping more furiously like it was steam shooting out of a tea kettle.

She instantly recognized that this girl was casting some sort of emotional spell on Reyna's calm demeanor. She shook her head softly and decided to focus on a less distracting subject.

"Dove boy?" Reyna asked with a forced smile, Frank who was now standing by her side away from the two savages who began bickering less like an older married couple and more like two hyenas tearing away at bloody corpse.

"He's the son of Venus and that right there is Kaylee Cartagena...one of my half sisters." Frank said exasperatedly.

Seemed like Reyna was correct in assuming that this girl was a child of Mars, she seemed like an exact duplicate of her father, at least in the character traits department. Although Frank and Kaylee on the other hand, couldn't possibly seem any more different.

"A bit aggressive your sister is." Reyna noted.

Frank smirked. "An infamous quality that runs through the blood of all the children of war."

"You're the exception." Reyna countered.

As if on cue, another aggravatingly hostile teen male joined the argument out of nowhere. He and Kaylee must've been closely related, they had the same facial complexion, black hair, sunglasses, similar clothing, and unnatural burning fiery eyes. Another one of Frank's testosterone filled raging siblings. The only difference between this newcomer and Kaylee, was the fact that he was pushing maybe six feet nine, he was built like an absolute monster and had a more scarred face. He towered over Arthur by maybe a foot, and looked strong enough to take Frank on while in elephant form.

"Arthur," The boy said quietly and deadly. "If I see your hand itch towards that blade one more time while you're talking to my sister, you're gonna need to find a new one."

"Kaylee's a tough one no doubt, but he's the one you gotta really watch out for," Frank whispered to her. "That's her twin brother. He wrestled _Lupa_ to the ground and won."

"Lies." Reyna scoffed, that was impossible. Not the whole twin thing, although the fact that he was inside his mothers belly the same time as his sister seemed like an absolute nightmare for the poor mother, that had to carry that beast around, plus another. "Lady Lupa would have massacred him."

"It's the truth." Frank said with a straight face. "I'm pretty sure he punched our dad in the face when he was like _seven_."

Reyna laughed. "Your father really knows how to make them."

She chewed on her fingernails as she watched curiously awaiting an entertaining fight to break out at any moment. She just now noticed that she had recently developed a bad habit, not the fingernail biting but the whole enjoying a good argument thing of course. People beating up other people was always a fun sight, at least now she wouldn't have to be the one to break them up once they got down and dirty.

"I'm not sure you'll be able to make your move quick enough, with my foot so far up your ass, Caleb." Arthur laughed mockingly, he took a closer step towards this mountainous kid, looking straight into those empty holes filled with blue flames. Reyna noticed that the burning eyes, didn't have the same effect on Arthur as it must have to other kids. It must have aggravated Caleb to a dangerous point. The way that Arthur stood up against Caleb was by far the only quality so far that Reyna seemed to like about him. Maybe she shouldn't be so quick to judge a person.

"I swear to the gods," The son of Mars threatened while cracking his knuckles. "Let another word come out of that pie hole of yours, Cain and I'll gazelle kick the shit out of your face."

"OH REALLY?!" Arthur drew two swords in a swift move and pointed them directly at the Caleb's thick neck. "LETS GO THEN!"

Caleb's laugh boomed across the fields with such raw intensity that the grass blades shifted like a strong breeze just blew through. He stalked over towards the racks of weapons and shields along the side of the fence on his right. He kicked a solid gold javelin into the air and spun it in a flashy fashion until it laid in both of his palms pointed at Arthur's chest-plate. From the looks of it, Arthur was about to be impaled like a shish-kabob for the entire city to see.

"Kick his ass, big brother!" Kaylee instigated like she was watching a boxing match that she had bet a good amount of money on.

Frank looked over at his sister with a scowl. "Really, Kaylee? Is this all really necessary?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "What can I say? Pretty boy is the one that started it."

"What a good way to put your blade where your mouth is, Miss Kaylee!" Arthur laughed with a huge smile on his face. "Calling your rabid dog on me when things start to get too tough for you! HA!"

Kaylee sneered. "I don't need my brother to fight my battles, Cain!"

"Enough of this!" Frank stepped in between the two armed demigods. "Stand down or I swear to the gods I'm going to sit on one of you."

Reyna took a step back and had to stifle a laughter. She almost forgot how often Frank prone was to making very weird threats.

"STEP ASIDE, FRANK! I'M BOUT TO SKEWER THIS LOVE DEMON!" Caleb growled with wide blue fiery eyes behind the black tinted shades.

Arthur gasped, clearly that was very insulting to him. The three began moving in semi circles without anyone actually making the first move.

Reyna lived with the Greeks for almost two months and she had not seen an argument escalate this fast with very little substance to fuel the fire. It was truly amazing in her opinion. The closest to an actual fight she had witnessed with the Greeks, was the Great Prank Wars of the Hermes Cabin. The chaos that ensued that day...was _haunting_. Reyna got the shivers just thinking about it.

"Those three are going at it again?" Said the little girl that had quietly appeared at Reyna's side. She was a beautiful curly brown haired child with piercing silver eyes, probably still young enough to be in the sixth grade.

"I'm guessing you've seen this happen before?" Reyna asked.

"They're always starting trouble." She sighed and rubbed her temple like she was getting a migraine. An odd thing for someone her age to do. "You'd assume since their godly parents are rocking the same beds, that they'd at least be able to tolerate each other. But they take the whole step sibling rivalry to the next level."

The little girl was clearly annoyed to Reyna's amusement. She noticed the SPQR tattoo on the child's wrist, a dove with two knives crossing blades, followed by a pair of stripes, meaning two years of service within the legion. An elegantly crafted gold and black dagger strapped her to waist, glistened in the sunlight.

Reyna furrowed her brows. "You're not here to fight in the games, are you?"

She hoped not, this girl seemed like a promising warrior but she also seemed a bit too young to be a fighter. Most demigods don't choose to fight but rather are more or less pushed into this lifestyle. Reyna hoped for better futures for this new era of demigods, but it was nothing more than wishful thinking.

The young girl smiled and laughed. "Unfortunately, I can't. Actually a wrong choice of words, I _won't_ because the legionnaires wouldn't feel comfortable facing me in a duel."

"Because of your age?" Reyna asked.

" _Age_ has nothing to do with it. There have been hundreds of legionnaires of my age fighting monsters since the founding of New Rome." The girl responded with a sly grin. "Its just that nobody wants to get their butts handed to them by a twelve year old girl for the entire city to see. Plus there's the whole no fighting with the Praetor or you'll get your head chopped off nonsense."

Reyna let that sentence marinate for a second before she accepted it as the truth. " _You're_ the legions Praetor?"

She looked at the girl with a new found sense of respect that people usually didn't receive on a first encounter with Reyna. She finally saw it after really taking a look at this young girl, the way she held her chin high, the way she composed herself, and the look in her strong silver eyes. They demanded respect.

The girl nodded and held out her small hand. "My name is Adriana."

Reyna shook the child's hand, with a unintentional amount of cautiousness. This kid was so young that she could almost be her child. "Was I not what you were expecting?" She asked.

"On the contrary, you are exactly what I was expecting." Reyna admitted. "I guess that's what throws me off a little bit. In an impressed kind of way, of course."

How could she be so young, yet so capable enough to be elected as the praetor of such a strong and enormous military force?

Just then, the twin son of Mars, came crashing through the wooden fence beside Reyna in a spectacular fashion.

"AHH, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU." Caleb roared his threats at Arthur who was laughing at the now fallen demigod. How he managed to drop the mountain of a kid to the ground, she had no idea.

Adriana walked over and pinned him down with her foot, there was no strength behind the foot, making the gesture kind of useless to someone as enormous as Caleb who could've lifted the child by the leg and tossed her over the rooftops of the city and into the Little Tiber. It was respect for authority that kept him pinned to the dirt. "Enough, Caleb."

"Adriana." Caleb put on a fake smile and growled through his teeth. "We were just practicing for the games. You know, a little bit of stretches, warm ups, got to get the blood flowing... _out of his skull._ Don't wanna cramp up while I'm crushing this douche bags head with my bare hands."

"If you want to settle your differences, then you will do it in the Coliseum." Adriana snapped. _What a feisty little girl_ , Reyna smiled.

Nobody bothered to say otherwise, they knew that her word was final. "Reyna and Frank, come. The games will be starting shortly. As for the rest of you, keep the peace."

"Fine." Caleb muttered as he struggled to his two feet, the entire backside of his black jacket dirty with sand. A reminder that somehow, Arthur had managed to drop the mountainous figure and put him belly up.

Reyna looked over at Frank, who smiled and held his thumbs up. He followed the little girl, Adriana, into one of the great archways of the Coliseum. Reyna looked back and saw the three demigods squabbling and bickering but they had sheathed their weapons and resorted to hateful arguing rather than decapitating each other before the games had even begun.

Frank was right about one thing, this Adriana sure did have an admirable personality that Reyna found very interesting. She wondered if Isaac was the one who promoted Adriana as a qualified contender to be the Legion's Praetor, it was obviously a well made decision.

Isaac had yet to be seen around camp, apparently he was on some personal quest. He was the one that replaced Reyna a couple years back after she retired. She figured that he was going to be the one to greet her when she first appeared at the cities borders. Reyna knew that he was in some serious trouble when he first took office due to his _controversial_ heritage, but she had yet to hear anything bad since then.

Frank disappeared in the Coliseum, apparently he needed to get ready for the games as well. So that just left Adriana and her alone in the Praetor's Box overlooking the the stadium and the perfect view of the arena below.

The way Adriana took swigs of wine from her golden goblet made Reyna feel a little scared for the child's well being. It was after the girls fifth cup that Reyna came to the conclusion that the little one had the resiliency common to a child of Dionysus or Bacchus. Any grown man would've stumbled over the balcony rails and nosedived straight into the coliseum's sold out stadium right about now.

"I've never seen someone handle wine the way you do, Adriana." Reyna commented as she adjusted a purple toga over her civilian attire. The praetor had given her this one-size-fits-all ancient garment, so that she could upkeep a look of professionalism as a former praetor. The sun bleached golden rope was a little tight around the stomach, but it was manageable. She wasn't going to say anything, but soon enough people were bound to see the baby bump. "Surely, that cant be good for your health."

Adriana cracked a smile as she pulled out another purple toga complete with golden armor and medals, much more impressive than the one Reyna had been given earlier. "Don't worry, I wont be stumbling into any battles with a clouded mind, Reyna. My mother, Venus, gifted me with the immunity of all poisons known to man, which included alcohol. Although I've learned that after a couple dozen shots of Fireball, my toes begin to feel a little tingly. Normal alcohol makes me feel as if I just took two scoops of the worlds strongest pre-workout. My instincts become stronger and faster than they ever were before."

"Must be a relief knowing that death by poison is off the tables for you." Reyna replied as she walked across the room towards the balcony where she could get a clear view of the massive coliseum and the contenders that were warming up for the games.

Adriana swung her beautifully stiched toga over her shoulder and her small figure like a cape. "Poisoning is for sissies, my enemies will need to be a little more creative when brainstorming ideas for my demise."

"Monsters tend to stick with basics." Reyna said as she smiled at Frank who was waving from the battlegrounds below. "Stabbing. Swinging. Punching. Beating. Those methods never go out of style."

"Monsters aren't my main concern at this moment." Adriana muttered after another swig of wine. "Although they are a very close second."

Reyna turned and faced the girl who took a seat on her throne just outside on the balcony. Adriana's eyebrows furrowed and her silver eyes glazed over the crowd, picking out each and every single person almost angrily, as if any one of them were ready to pull a Julius Caesar and pounce her at any moment with knives and swords.

"What do you mean?" Reyna took a seat on a less impressive seat right next to the Praetor. "They may be mindless creatures but you shouldn't underestimate a hundred idiots once they've gathered enough brain cells to form a mob."

"Isn't that the sad truth. But the issue going on with the god's on Olympus, is probably my main concern."

Reyna had nearly forgotten about that. It wasn't too long ago that Olympus had shut it's doors after a certain couple of godly beings decided to have an all powerful nuke level mishap in the throne room.

"What's the issue? All they did was start a fight and blow up half of the eternal city." Reyna commented. It's not like there was any difference in the way that the world was running without them.

"There's been rumors spreading about what happened. Who started the fight and why… It's the consequences of their actions that I'm worried about." Adriana sighed. "All out war doesn't seem to too far fetched at this point."

Reyna had shut herself in her cabin back at Camp Half-Blood for so long that she wasn't around to hear any gossip about the incident. "What are they saying?"

Adriana seemed almost hesitant to answer her question. "Apparently Lord Zeus has been accused of killing Percy Jackson."

Reyna nearly snapped the armrest to her seat clean in half.

"I saw the murderers, myself. It wasn't him." Reyna spoke in a controlled tone. The king of the gods was very certainly capable of doing something of this caliber...if he did, there was nothing that she could do to retaliate. But he didn't do it, the murderer was the man in black. "They were monsters, that attacked us. Ultimately it was an ancient relic...that finished the job."

"It was only a rumor." Adriana said as if she regretted even mentioning it. "Still the doors to Olympus are shut and now that there aren't any more monsters. I'm afraid of what will happen next."

"No monsters? What do you mean?"

"Haven't you noticed? There hasn't been a single monster sighting in a month and a half." She answered with a mildly shocked expression. "Every single enemy Cyclopes, dragon, giant, or mythical being that walked the Earth with the intention of sucking the soul out of demigods skull like a freaking juice box has disappeared into thin air, not to be seen by either of the Camps on this continent. Hell, we even had Medusa locked up in the brig but she just disappeared from her cell like she was never even there. Which is very disappointing, I would have really liked to have her head."

Reyna shook her head. "Thats impossible."

"You've been out of commission for a while now, Reyna." Adriana replied. "If you hadn't taken the Argo ferries through the skies to get here, you would have noticed that the outside world is almost...peaceful. The demigod death toll has plummeted to almost nothing. Which makes me a hundred times more uneasy than knowing that just two months ago there were blood-thirsty creatures lurking around each dark corner in every city or town on the planet. All the monsters are probably filling up every crack and crevice deep in Tartarus right about now. At some point its just going to spill them all back out at once. Demigods will die at higher rates than ever before. If a war does decide to start up with the gods, the double damage will be even more devastating."

"Are you absolutely sure?" Reyna asked incredibly. "I mean, have you sent out scouts to search the near by areas for any signs of stragglers?"

She nodded in response. "I sent out patrols to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Palm Springs, and Las Vegas. So far we haven't had any incidents anywhere along the western coast and we have heard the same from our counterparts in the east. The Romans are starting to become complacent due to this new shift in the food chain."

Reyna could not believe her ears. Had she really missed out on so much information?

"That's the reason behind the games?" Reyna asked. "To subdue the complacency?"

Almost as if on cue, the bellowing of horns echoed across the stadiums and the crowd roared aloud in cheers. A demigod walked to the center of the arena and began the opening remarks.

"The demigods train every day." Adriana said to Reyna as she stood and waved at the crowd when the announcer introduced the praetor in his remarks. "But training isn't enough. The games pits demigod against demigod in a controlled deadly environment-"

"Deadly?" Reyna interrupted. "The gladiator matches are no different than the war games. Its painful sure, but no killing is tolerated. Unless you plan to reinstate fighting to the death, there is always going to be sense of reinsurance within your borders."

Adriana smiled. "Haven't you been paying attention Reyna? Today's games are different. We are going to have _monsters._ "

The young girl turned and faced the arena. Reyna followed her gaze, the crowd was silent and it seemed darker than it had been just a couple seconds before. Instinctively something felt off, her arms fell to her stomach as she covered her unborn child with her soft but strong embrace.

Frank Zhang took to the center of the sandy arena, bare chested and bare footed with only his cargo shorts. He raised his arms in the sky and began to chant in Latin, the crowds roared louder and louder showering him in red rose petals. Reyna never thought of Frank as a showman, but he certainly had no trouble in arousing the crowds.

Another loud horn rang across the arena, when it finally ended the son of Mars began to shake violently as if he were a dryer and somebody just tossed a brick inside just before turning it on. His skin morphed into this scaly grey hide and his body began to elongate and suddenly he became this intense grey skinned snake-No not a snake, it was perhaps one of the most enormous Drakon's that she had ever laid eyes on. About one hundred fifty feet in length and about as tall as a bus. Reyna went slack jawed at the sight of this beast that the demigod had just transformed into, it was truly terrifying.

"I've convinced former Praetor Zhang, to not hold back today." Adriana said with a sweet innocent smile.

"That's clearly not an animal." Reyna suddenly interested by this sudden show of power. "I didn't know that he could shape shift into something like that...monster."

The horns blasted and the battle began, twenty fully armored merely stood by in fright as they stared directly into Frank's paralysis inducing eyes. He swung his giant tail and sent at least five tumbling into the dirt. It was Caleb who broke eye contact and rushed forward with his javelin aimed at Frank's serpent body but the gold spearhead merely scratched his thick hide like it was made of styrafoam.

Caleb's courage knocked the other warriors from their fear filled trances, they charged and brandished their weapons in the sky screaming war cries. Each began stabbing and slicing Frank from all directions, but their actions were abundantly useless.

He swung his tail and knocked them on their backs, suddenly Frank's body began to convulse. His giant jaw slipped open and giant wads of sizzling venom spit onto the sandy pits.

" _That'sss new._ " Frank hissed in his Drakon form.

Caleb charged at Frank so hard that the giant snake tumbled over and began to roll through the sand running over armored Roman's like a really long bulldozer. Caleb must have had some sort of enhanced strength to perform such a feat.

Just before one of the other Romans seized the opportunity to impale a sword in the Drakon's mouth, Frank morphed into his normal demigod form and snatched Caleb's javelin from his iron clad grip and swung the butt of the spear in a 360 degree rotation knocking around Roman brains against the inside of their helms. He dropped the spear and morphed into a armor-skinned giant red dragon and spewed orange flames in all directions.

The fiery was merely dancing on the warriors' armor but you can tell they were clearly terrified and overpowered.

"He's good." Adriana noted and took a drink of wine. "But he's clearly not even giving it his best."

Reyna agreed. "If he wasn't holding back, they'd be dead. If this were a real life situation they'd be screwed."

Caleb threw his weapons aside and tackled the van sized dragon, wrestling it to the ground. For a moment, it seemed plausible that this kid could have fought Lupa and survived.

Frank morphed as soon as he tumbled to the dirt. A giant glimmering lion took his place and snatched Caleb up with it's giant teeth and tossed him aside like a toy doll. A bunch of Romans pulled out lassos from their war belts and tossed them towards Frank's legs, like a snare he was entangled by the ropes. He let out a mighty roar as they tugged hard and he split onto his belly as they threatened to tear his limbs apart. Another Roman jumped onto the golden lion and thrusted his sword into it's back, but the blade slid off his hide like he was covered in grease.

Reyna nearly had a heart attack at the sight. If Frank hadn't chosen the form of the Nemean Lion, he would without a doubt have been paralyzed or dead.

Frank morphed into a giant hog and freed himself of the ropes, the unsuspecting Roman on his back held onto the giant pig. His eyes look utterly terrified through his golden helmet as Frank bucked back and forth trying to get rid of the hitch hiker. Within thirty seconds frank had incapacitated nearly all of the warriors by kicking them with his back two legs and his giant ivory tusks, towards the end he remained in his human form but grew giant white angel like wings and dropped Caleb from twenty feet in the air.

Reyna failed to acknowledge how far the extent of Frank's power could really go. Caleb somersaulted onto the ground and picked up the nearest javelin and tossed it towards Frank like it was an arrow from a bow. Frank was caught in his left wing and spiraled into the ground followed closely by a light rain of blood and feathers. It was the first wound that he had received, and also the last as Caleb rushed forward and held a gladius to his throat. Frank laughed in pain but yielded nonetheless.

"Frank never showed the full capacity of his powers when he was Praetor." Reyna muttered as she leaned back into her seat.

"He's a lot more powerful than he lets on." Adriana complimented him.

Next up were individual matches, one fighter vs another.

Each battle was more spectacular than the last.

Until we came to the last two fighters standing. Kaylee Cartagena and Arthur Cain.

They stood feet apart, weapons ready. Kaylee stood with her sword and shield, but her deadliest weapon had to be her terrifying glare. She had a couple cuts and bruises throughout her body but she still turned down the offer for more armor instead of the singular chest plate protecting her torso. Arthur on the other hand was armored up with leather gauntlets, chest plate, and a gold helm, all totally unscathed even after five long matches with the other competitors.

The two fought past all the sweat and sand in their eyes.

Arthur used his swords in seamlessly fluid motions. Kaylee could barely counter the fast moving blades with her own single long-sword as he invaded her footing. She caught one sword with the hilt of hers and used her left foot to kick his right wrist back just as he was about to slash at her waist with his second sword. She pushed him away angrily and swung the long sword in a reverse slash, slicing his thick gold armor diagonally.

Arthur was clearly shocked by how close she was to revealing his innards, but that was only a split second reaction. He used his left to fend off Kaylee's blade and the other to slice the side of her right thigh. She screamed in pain as the blood leaked from her wounds, Kaylee grabbed her thigh and then raised her bloody hand to her eyes, she stared at it for about a second. It was almost as if she was looking at her soul that someone had ripped out of her body and handed to her. But nonetheless she pushed even harder than before. You could see the struggle in Arthur's footwork as he began to fall back due to the sheer force of power that Kaylee seemingly pulled out of nowhere and transferred the kinetic energy into each swing of her sword.

It seemed as if her fiery eyes were getting brighter as the suspenseful fight went on.

The intensity of this duel had Reyna clawing at the armrests of her seat. "They are going to kill each other."

The young girl gave her a smile. "We only have room for only one winner, Reyna. There are no draws in war, you know this already."

"This isn't a fight to the death. You should end this before some meets an early grave."

Adriana raised an eyebrow. "That sounded like an order."

Reyna scowled. "More of a suggestion."

Adriana smiled and turned her attention back the games. Kaylee somehow managed to smack Arthur with the flat end of her sword. His helmet had been knocked off his head and tumbled to the ground just as he did. The boy spit blood like venom. Still he found the will to hold his blades up and fight.

"If you fear for their safety, next time Ill make sure to add plastic sticks rather than actual swords. They've been bitter towards each other since the day that they met. But I doubt they'd go as far as killing each other." Adriana countered with a curious face. "They couldn't possibly hate each other that much."

"They nearly tore one another apart before the games even started!"

Adriana giggled. Reyna stared at the praetor. She just met the girl today and it was dawning on her why she had been chosen to lead in the first place.

The crowd began to roar. Reyna turned her attention back to the fight just in time just to see Arthur drop both his swords after one final blow from Kaylee. The crowd began to scream and cheer louder than ever. Reyna could only watch in horror as the scene began to unfold in front her.

Kaylee held her sword above her head, building the strength for one final swing. Reyna started to stand in order to call off the fight but Adriana placed a hand on her shoulder.

Kaylee brought down her sword in one swift move. Before she could decapitate Arthur, he shot up and grabbed her by the wrist, disarming her with a simple twist. Then he punched her in the throat. Her fiery eyes went out like the flame from a lighter on a windy day, revealing her wide normal brown eyes. She dropped to her knees and gasped for air holding her neck in a desperate attempt to withstand the pain.

"We have a winner." Adriana said.

"Looks like you clearly have things handled." Reyna sighed a breath of relief and caught Adriana's proud gaze. She looked like a 6th grader that just got first place in a spelling bee. "Frank said that you had some sort of proposition for me. So tell me, why am I here, Adriana?"

"I told him to keep that to himself." Adriana poured more wine into her goblet. "I have ran into some difficulties lately within the responsibilities of my praetorship."

"Things look as if they have been running smoothly, what's come up?"

"It's Isaac...He's gone missing." Adriana spoke in the same way a child would if they were homesick, it was for the first time that she revealed maybe a hint of her young side to Reyna.

 _Goddammit_ , she thought. _Why do demigods always go missing?_

"What do you mean?" Reyna asked confused. "People all over have been telling me was on a quest. When were you last in contact with him?"

"He was never on a quest," Adriana couldn't say the words while meeting Reyna's gaze. "Its just a lie that I told them. I couldn't bear the thought of them getting the wrong idea."

"What could be so bad that the people wouldn't understand?"

Adriana looked towards Reyna with a sort of guilt. "Remember the day we learned about Isaac?"

Reyna sighed. "You mean when we found out he was a descendant of Saturn? I remember, the Senate nearly impeached him the day after he was inaugurated when they found out."

Isaac was a good man without a doubt and an unfaltering loyalty to the people. But this fault in his heritage nearly got him killed. Now she understood why Adrian was cautious to tell the people. But there were still some information that was missing.

"How long has he been missing?"

Adriana didn't meet her stare. "He went missing the five days before Olympus shut down. Without so much as a word, he slipped out of the Camp and didn't even leave a note. It was two days before the incident..."

Reyna's mind went blank. "That can't be a coincidence."

Adriana looked towards Reyna with a glimmer of hope, that maybe there was something that she could do. "You are the only person other than Frank that I can trust to keep the city running-"

"Keep the city running?" Reyna asked for clarification. "You want me and Frank to run the city, while you do what?"

"I have to find Isaac." Adriana answered. "I can't ask the Senate to issue a quest. There will be too many questions and talks of treason-"

"He chose the wrong time to go missing." Reyna concluded. "Percy died just days after he lost contact with you, and you don't think there's anything off about that?"

"I understand the seriousness of the situation that he is under, trust me I have contemplated it for a month and half now."

"Well I don't think that I will be able to take over a leadership role here at Camp. I have changed more than you know, and I don't think I'd be up to the task."

"You and Frank led the Roman's through war times, there is no one else that can possibly do what I'm asking you to do, please, Reyna."

"I don't think that you quite understand-"

BOOM!

An explosion echoed through the stadiums. Looking up to the skies you could see that the blue heavens were rippling with Greek fire that rained down from a couple thousand feet above the valleys of New Rome. Reyna watched as the sky came crumbling down in a thousand different pieces. Meteors were crashing through the atmosphere and seemed to be on a warpath towards the Roman camp.

"An attack." Adriana gasped.

People poured out of the Coliseum in large groups and looked to the skies only to see rocks hurtling towards them in a green fiery spectacle.

Reyna followed Adriana out but was nearly impaled by a large shard of celestial bronze that came crashing through the ceiling of the Praetor's box and smashed into the marble tiles in front of Reyna's feet. She was thrown back by the impact and smashed into a book shelf. It felt worse than it looked.

Her ears were ringing like crazy and when the smoke cleared, Adriana was at her side with her hand on Reyna's stomach.

Adriana suddenly looked shock. "You're pregnant."

Reyna felt dazed but didn't meet the young praetors eyes, instead she looked to the destruction in front of her. The contraption that crashed into the floor, was a large plate of precious metal that had something printed along the side. It read:

 ** _S.S. PALLADIUM_**

"No," Reyna whispered in realization and shock. "Please god, no."

She stumbled to her feet and ran outside along with the flock of others. In the skies, much larger pieces of Leo's flying fortress were falling from above.

If this was Leo's home out there, than that meant somebody had attacked him out there on the edge of space, and by the looks of what was left...Reyna prayed to the gods for Leo and Calypso's fate.

Frank came swooping in from the skies in his dragon form, she didn't know long he had been up there in the skies but when he crashed right there in front of Reyna and Adriana, he morphed back into human form carrying the limp body of a titaness in his arms. It was a bloody and ash covered Calypso.

If she was here then where was Leo?

Reyna couldn't bear to lose any more friends.


	6. Chapter 6

**NICO**

 _PRESENT DAY_

The dead should stay dead.

You really shouldn't go around trying to bring somebody back from the afterlife, because for all you know, you could be bringing back a zombie. And trust Nico when he says that is a bad idea, he figured out that those guys stink up the house quicker than you think. It doesn't matter how much Febreeze you use, the stench of rotting flesh does cannot clear out fast enough.

It was a lesson he learned through all his years spent observing the world and underworld alike from behind a mirror. There were exceptions of course, his sister Hazel died and came back to life but it didn't always work out so smoothly.

You did not want to be around the living dead when crap started going south. It's like horror movie 101, do not _under any circumstance_ bring back the dead, just let it be. You don't want to take any chances.

Nico's dreams were constantly haunted by the sorrowful faces of people from his past that he couldn't save, thank the gods they were just that...dreams. Usually he didn't remember the nightmares after he woke up. But the thoughts still lingered in the back of his mind, he believed that this was the reason that he concentrated so much on his work now.

By the gods, his thoughts could be so dark sometimes, even for a child of Hades. How did Hazel always manage to be so upbeat all the time?

Nico was a real supernatural workaholic, trying to rid the world of evil, one monster at a time by closing every door between here and the underworld that he could.

The enchanted sun that shone over Camp Half-Blood was hidden behind the dark swirling clouds that Nico was conjuring with his mind as he sat there on the far end of the basketball court. Actually they were less cloudish and more demonish, as if he had opened a portal to the underworld and let loose a couple of dementors into camp. Chiron didn't appreciate him always releasing the supernatural underbelly out in the valley unless it was for _educational purposes_.

"Cut the shit, Di Angelo." A guy said towering over Nico. He was a tall lean kid holding a basketball underneath his tattooed left arm. "We're trying to play a game here and you're _really_ killing the vibe. You're scaring Billy and you know he's scared of the dark, man."

A couple of teens had gathered up on the blacktop sometime after Nico started working. Billy, a real tough and muscular kid, was running in circles trying to get away from one swirling mass of black chasing him as he sobbed uncontrollably. Nico didn't notice them earlier, then again his head did get a little fuzzy every time he was doing his _thing_.

"Give me just a couple minutes, I was making a break-thru on something." He muttered and closed his eyes again and concentrated on the tugging in the center of his gut. A ghost like projection of himself was down in the underworld, searching for any open doors that may serve as passageways to the topside and of course he was looking for the monsters as well.

The kid, Jeff, grunted. "Come on, dude. That's what you have your cabin for, so that you can do all your weird prince of the underworld voodoo, hoodoo crap in there."

"Well, lucky you that I didn't bring any of my roosters to sacrifice today, huh?" Nico said sarcastically. Actually he lost all his roosters because the harpies just had to cheat on their diets and ate everything within sight just last week.

Jeff threw his head back in frustration and groaned. "Well can you at least contain all of... _this_."

He waved his hands toward the black smoke that was floating around Nico. The wispy darkness started to take a humanoid shape and he willed it to give Jeff the middle finger. "You're gonna make Billy cry, you know children of Aphrodite are crybabies."

"He already is crying." Nico responded. "But I'll try my best."

"Whatever dude." Jeff went back to scoring three pointers and left Nico to continue his work.

He did try to contain all the darkness in a sphere around him as he didn't want anybody bother him while he was concentrating. The reason he was even out in public in the first place was that—it was was kinda hard to explain, but in simple terms, he felt a disturbance in the force and it was better to observe from the outside rather than the inside of his coffin-like room.

Of course, Nico had taken it upon himself, he felt it was his job to go looking for the source of the problem. The only thing was, he couldn't find this disturbance no matter how much he searched the darkest parts of this Earth. It was like all of the world's problems had suddenly vanished off the face of the earth, and it was really irking Nico's nerves.

Mainly, it was the monsters, they probably crawled back into the depths of Tartarus. Now you may be thinking: _Hey, Nico isn't that a good thing?_ No more creepy crawlers preying on demigods and mounting their heads onto their living room walls.

What many people don't seem to understand is that demigods and monsters are basically different sides of the same coin, meanwhile the gods are the douches flipping it to see who lives and dies, heads or tails. Now that one whole half of the coin is gone it's really been throwing Nico off balance. It's been approximately a month and a half since the last recorded encounter with a monster, everyone is taking it as a cause for celebration but he can't help but feel like there is something worse looming over the horizon.

No matter how many times Nico tried to communicate with his father, he couldn't get a response back. Why did the god's have to be such petty assholes? They get in one fight and decided to lock themselves in their homes and ignore the world around them.

Nico concentrated on the shadows surrounding a place he never wanted to see again. He focused on the entrance to the pit deep in the Underworld. It brought back so many terrible memories but he just had to be sure. He needed to find out where all the monsters had gone.

He pictured himself standing on the edge of the pit, looking down into the dark nothingness. Only a couple of years ago, he encountered the true horrendous terrors that laid just underneath his feet. Normally, Nico wasn't so easily prone to being scared as were regular people. But the pit... it was something else entirely. It was scary enough to make Zeus tuck and tail and run away.

Then he felt it. The sudden feeling that someone was standing behind him, creeping closer, breathing down his neck. Nico knew that his physical body wasn't actually there next to the pit, but showing up in an astral form could be just as dangerous. If he stuck around too long outside of his body, he might end up like the Lares hanging around Camp Jupiter for all eternity.

He whipped around and saw nobody there, the chills in the air was followed by the whispering of a hundred different voices, screams coming straight from the deepest darkest parts of the pit. Sounds of pain and suffering, coming from miles below his feet.

Nico started freaking out, his heart began to pound against chest like a drum. The voices were getting louder, then came the horrible screams. His feet began to sink into the black dirt of the underworld like it was quicksand.

 _It's_ _not real_ , he told himself. Not very reassuring.

"This isn't real." He said but his voice was hoarse and barely exceeded a whisper, as the earth swallowed him and began to drag him closer towards Tartarus. He pushed at the ground with his elbows trying to fight this force pulling him chest deep into the ground.

"Are you sure about that." A man answered back from the shadows. "This all _seems_ pretty real doesn't it?"

An armored man draped in black rags with a black skull helm similar to the demonic rabbit from Donnie Darko, creeped from the shadows and knelt in front of the sunken demigod, brushing Nico's long black hair away from his eyes. "Here you are, a mere projection of yourself. And here I am, touching your skull with my hands...I wonder what would happen if I squeezed your noggin between my fingers like a grape. Would you die? Or would it be like waking up from a nightmare?"

His large gloved metallic fingers wrapped tightly around Nico's skull, which was his only body part sticking out of the black dirt.

 _"_ Who are you?" Nico tried to free himself of the ground that was swallowing him alive, but for once his power over the Underworld was no longer obedient.

"I'm just a servant to a higher power, Nico Di Angelo." The man said in his deep raspy voice. "But you won't be alive long enough to meet him."

"Please, no!" Nico screamed looking back as the pit began to suck him in like a vacuum, this is not how this day was supposed to go.

The stranger ripped him out of the ground with one hand tightly around his throat and dropped him into the dark abyss.

Nico stopped concentrating on this astral projection of his and the little bubble of darkness surrounding him dissipated into a shower of blackness and he dropped onto the basketball court. Nico was hyperventilating, he could feel the ground beneath him but in his eyes he was still in a freefall heading towards the bottom of Tartarus. The screams in his skull were still there growing louder within the confines of his mind, banging and tearing away at his ears.

He grabbed his skull and tried to concentrate on cancelling out the noise. It wasn't working, behind the noise he could hear whispers...a sinister voice. Why was this happening to him?

 _I was hoping you would keep on falling,_ the stranger cackled. _But there's still time, Nico. We will see each other again...and I promise, you won't be so lucky then..._

"Nico!" Jeff ran to his side and grabbed him by the shoulder. "Dude, are you alright?"

A small crowd began to form around him. But the noises, a thousand screaming voices tearing at the borders of his sanity, they weren't stopping.

"Voices!" Nico yelled, he felt like they were trying to drive him mad. "I can't shut them out."

"Don't concentrate on them." Jeff said as he bent down and grabbed Nico by the back of the head and stared into his eyes. "Look at me and concentrate on _yourself_."

Nico was doing that, but the strangers evil laugh still haunted him.

Until it didn't. They just disappeared.

Nico didn't bask in the sudden peace of silence. He shot up and ran to his cabin at full speed leaving behind the crowd of confused and worried friends.

He shut the door and slid to the ground beside his bed. Memories of his time back in the pit all those years ago were rushing back all at once. He wished he could have forgotten them all. This short trip to the Underworld just reminded him that they were always going to be there.

For some reason, somebody didn't want him snooping around Tartarus.

That only further tempted Nico to investigate even more.

But he'd have to find another means of getting information. Nothing would ever tempt him to going anywhere close to that black trench ever again.

* * *

Nico fell asleep early that day and woke up around seven in the afternoon with a startle, a bed soaked in cold sweat and a heartbeat that was kicking harder than a professional soccer player. He was gripping the mahogany framed bed in his dark cabin until his fingers were white and numb. A thousand piercing screams sounding off in his head all at the same time. Shouting in pain, shouting in fear and disorder, but none shared the same concerns as the other.

It didn't look like he was going to be getting any sleep tonight.

Nico jumped off his bunk and slammed through his cabin door in nothing but his black tank top and shorts. The camp was already secured for the night so it was quiet and empty all across the valley. But the screaming, it was still haunting him, although now he could hear the voices outside the limitations of his skull, the screams seemed to be coming from somewhere in the distance. How nobody else in the camp woke up, was a mystery to Nico.

He ran towards the hills barefoot as fast as he could, towards the epicenter of the voices. The closer he got, the further the voices seemed. As Nico ran the shadows of the night melded around him like the ocean would if you jumped into it, he began to shadow travel towards the source of all the pain and the suffering. Running in the night through all the pitch blackness until he reached the middle of it all.

The shadows melted into the ground revealing a new location and the cries of pain disappeared from his skull just as fast as you could tune the volume knob. It was a strange feeling, having all those voices calling out to him, asking Nico to save them.

He was standing on a beach, in the soft pale sand as the blue foamy water ran between his toes. The sun was ten times bigger than it had ever been before and looked like a ball of white light that shined its warmth on him like soft rain.

"I gotta be on a different planet." Nico said to himself.

"It's not." Nico wasn't expecting an answer to his question, so he whipped around with his Stygian iron sword pointed at Leo's throat. The son of Hephaestus was sitting on a beach chair with a piña colada in one hand and a screwdriver in the other. "I don't think the Palladium is large enough to be considered a separate planet on its own right. A moon, eh, maybe. I want to say a comet, but I'm not too sure what the rules are that makes something qualify as a comet."

"An unidentified flying object seems more plausible than a moon." Calypso said as she sipped her martini. The titaness sat beside her partner on her very own beach chair. She looked up from her book, her caramel colored hair shimmered under the ray of the suns with her eyes hidden behind a pair of large sunglasses. "Hello, Nico."

"Hey, hello...Calypso." Nico replied with a small voice and an awkward wave of his hand.

"Usually a phone call is customary before a visit." Leo used the tip of his screwdriver to push aside Nico's sword point from his Adam's apple. "Not that we don't like visitors, we love 'em, especially the ones that are so friendly and kind as you often tend to be."

"Um Leo?" He said. Nico got a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Please tell me that this is not the Palladium."

"I thought we were just discussing this, bro. This indeed is my baby you're standing on. How you got on here is beyond me. I'm pretty sure that I installed a power dampener, but then again it was just a prototype, so I'm guessing it's trash now. Anyways, not to seem rude or anything, dude, but what exactly are you doing here? By the looks of it, it seems as if you just rolled out of bed. Having nightmares? Don't worry, uncle Leo is here for you. Come here, lemme give you a hug."

"Somethings wrong, Leo." Nico muttered scanning the rest of the beach. "I didn't plan on coming here, _something_ brought me here. Something evil."

Leo stood up and took off his Ray-Ban sunglasses. "Dude, what are you talking about? Are you alright?"

Calypso stood up and set her book down, her white dress swayed with the soft artificial sea breeze. "Nico? Do you need to sit down? Grab a chair for him, Leo."

"I'm fine, thanks." Nico said as he began to walk past the couple towards the mansion that sat on the grass in the far off distance.

Leo followed closely behind along with Calypso. "Where you off to, buddy?"

"How fast can you two get off this thing?" Nico asked abruptly.

Leo's smile wavered. "Pretty fast, but I'm not going anywhere without any type of explanation as to why! You don't just walk into the White House and ask the President to leave."

"I think I would be the President in this scenario." Calypso countered smugly. "You would be my First Lady."

"In your dreams." Leo laughed.

"Look guys, I was looking into something, trying to figure out why all the monsters disappeared all of a sudden, you know." Nico started explaining. "I went to Tartarus, not physically but...this voice—and all these noises...all the destruction. It brought me here, Leo. Something is about to happen here."

"Calm down, man." Leo said, he grabbed Nico by the shoulder and spun him around. "Not even a 'hi, how you doing?' first of all."

Nico sighed. "Look, I'm sorry about barging into your home, Leo. I know I probably sound crazy right now, but I have a bad feeling about this place, you just need to trust me right now."

Leo scoffed. "Come on, man, a bad feeling? Nico, this is perhaps the safest place on Earth. Well, not actually on Earth, but you know what I mean, though. Maybe a little demonstration? Calypso, babe, review the security measures."

Calypso held up her wrist and spoke into her apple watch. "Festus, enact protocol zero-one-alpha. Review security measures."

The Palladium shook underneath their feet. Nico suddenly got the feeling that this floating fortress was alive. Giant celestial bronze cannons erupted from beneath the sand along the coast of the beach and whirred to life as they scanned the grounds with red beams and giant machine gun turrets attached to either side of the cannons, for any Talos sized enemies that may pose a threat to Leo and Calypso's fortress of solitude.

Secret underground entrances from around the mansion grounds shot open and a thousand golden plated automatons shot out in large military formations. They stood about seven feet tall, and looked like a terrifying horror movie/steampunk themed take on C-3PO. Each carried their own choices of weapons, Nico noticed a bunch of swords and spears, a few knives, barbed wire entangled baseball bats, and there was even a robot that carried a purple balloon twisted into the shape of a poodle. How dangerous that guy must be in battle.

The roof of Leo's stone mansion had turned into a giant plasma cannon that spewed electricity off into space and sent tendrils of electricity in all directions.

Nico had plenty of reasons to believe that this place was in fact very safe. If not a little bit overkill in his opinion.

"This is the Palladium's last line of defense, Nico." Leo said with a grin and a dangerous twinkle in his eyes. "Plus we _are_ hundreds of thousands of feet in the sky, border lining space for god's sake! The chances of a monster showing up on my doorsteps and getting past the bouncer... it's practically impossible. Some random monster is gonna need a little more than a rope and grappling hook if he's gonna want to take my sweet brainchild for a ride."

It suddenly felt useless being here, but why did the voices bring him to this place? What was the purpose of following them all the way out here? Leo clearly had this under control.

"Maybe...I was overreacting a bit." Nico said glancing down at his sword. "But I'm telling you Nico—"

 _BOOM_!

That sound of the beaches cannon going off was like a blast of thunder that turned your eardrums to mush. Nico got the brief glimpse of something standing on the beach before it completely erupted into a pile of ash and sand that shot ten feet up into the air.

"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?" Leo yelled.

Nico hadn't noticed but Leo had ran straight for Calypso and held her in a protective grasp slash bear hug that smothered her face into his chest. "She said to review security measures! Not show a goddamn demonstration, Festus!"

"Let me go!" Calypso's muffled voice shouted. The titaness pushed away from Leo, her hair now messy and her large glasses hanging onto one ear.

"You seen that, right?!" Nico yelled louder than intended, pointing his sword at the place in the sand where the cannon had shot, while holding his ringing ears with his left hand.

"Yeah," Leo answered in frustration. "Goddamn security system is on the fritz again."

"No! It shot at something!" Nico argued as he ran towards the area that had been blown up, holding his pitch black sword at a readied stance. "I saw—"

 _BOOM_!

The sound of another cannon all the way across the fortress went off, much to Leo's surprise.

It was followed by another and another. All the defenses on the Palladium seemed to be going off randomly across the grounds as if they were being attacked by an invisible threat.

Nico turned towards Leo. "We need to get out of here!"

Then came the screaming voices again. Nico covered his ears with the palm of his hands to try and drown out the haunting voices of relentless pain. It only got louder by the second, one of the voices stuck out among the rest. The soft whispering of a deep menacing voice.

"We haven't given you permission to leave." The same raspy voice whispered from not too far away.

Nico looked over his shoulder, it was the same man that spoke to him down in Tartarus, he seemed to appear from thin air just ten feet away from them. It was hard to get an accurate description of how intimidating this man was but the truth was that this man looked dangerous in that armor of his and that long black stygian iron sword strapped to his side. The haunting screams seemed to follow him like a thousand moths surrounding a light.

"We've only just arrived." The stranger spoke.

Leo held up the palm of his hand towards the unknown intruder without so much as a second thought. A column of white hot flames burst from his fingertips and spiraled towards the enemy like a flamethrower, drenching the armored man from head to toe. Leo killed the flames, but you could still see the silhouette of the man underneath the human bonfire cackling like Leo had just blasted him with a water gun.

Nico fell to his knees due to the immense pressure of the voices building in his mind. The burning man slowly turned his helm to face him. Underneath the fire and metal mask, Nico could see his blue eyes curiously watching him suffer under the brute agony of the deafening voices. "You hear the voices, don't you? Aren't you curious to know what they are telling you, Nico? Listen a little closer."

Nico closed his eyes and focused closely.

 _Run!_ They screamed. _Leave! Death follows!_

"This on the other hand is very interesting." The man said staring at Leo, he whipped the flames off of himself as if it were a large cape he was pulling over his shoulder. "A pyromancer would be a very useful addition to our armies, little one. We almost had one that could manipulate the ocean...but he chose the wrong path."

The voices died when the stranger snapped his fingers. Just like a power switch the voices just disappeared as did the screeching pain in his brain.

"What do you want from us?" Nico questioned him.

"I don't want anything from you, at least not _now_. Another time." The stranger replied but his attention turned to Leo. "As for you, I think it's time I relieved you from your stressful duties as captain of this wondrous ship."

Leo scoffed. "Buddy, I'm sorry to tell you but I don't think you'd be able to handle this big beauty. Calypso, babe, I think it's time for to go for a full DEFCON 1."

Calypso nodded. She whispered something into her bracelet and then the Palladium made a metallic grinding sound. The ground shook as a dozen large horse sized silver automaton dragons erupted from the ground in huge bursts of flames like water and steam from a geyser. They snarled and swooped in from the skies to Calypso's side ready to tear an enemy to shreds with just one word.

The Titaness smiled and spoke a word in a language Nico could not understand. It sounded suspiciously like ' _Dracarys'_ but he couldn't be too sure. One of the autonomous dragons took that as an order to attack.

The giant dragon pounced on the man but he sidestepped and sliced the dragon in half with his ridiculously large sword. He stalked towards the dismembered machine and used the blade to cut through the dragon's skull like it was nothing at all. One of the beaches cannons turned towards the stranger and blasted him with a ball of white fire. He dodged the projectile and rolled through the sand with such graceful agility.

He pointed the great sword at Calypso and the two demigods. "I intend on tearing this palace to the ground, so that leaves you with two options. Surrender now and face judgement by my master or die trying to fight the inevitable."

"You're on my home turf, buddy." Leo caught fire like the human torch. "And I don't give up so easily."

"So be it."

That verbal cue came along with thousands of monsters and demons that crawled up the sides of the Palladium and pillaged Leo's fortress in all directions. It seemed like every species of monsters that Nico ever learned about back at Camp, was present for this invasion. Even the Minotaur could be seen charging into Leo's castle hundreds yards away, swinging his giant axe left and right dismembering automatons by the dozens.

Leo's mechanical army of dragons and robots didn't welcome them all with open arms, more like a huge battle full of oil and monster guts. Cannons fired sporadically at monsters, as did the giant lightning rod on the mansion. It may not have been a very good strategic move but Nico charged the armies leader head on.

Their swords met in the air but this man's strength was unlike anything he had ever faced before, the blunt force made him stumble back giving this warrior the advantage. He continued to pound at Nico's sword so hard that the vibration could be felt in his shoulders. Nico was an idiot trying to face this guy alone with a sword. Even now after a couple years of training he was no expert with the weapon. His talents were more powerful in the supernatural abilities department.

That was his best chance.

Nico took a breath, dropped his sword and clenched his fists. Two sharp black fissures shot from the ground on his left and right in a attempt to skewer the enemy but he was very quick. The stranger jumped out of the way but he didn't take his surroundings into consideration. A silver dragon snatched him up into the sky and carried him off a couple hundred yards before he sliced the wings off the automaton and crushed its face with his bare hands.

Before Nico could turn and run, an explosion rocked the Palladium from the north side and sent the stronghold dropping out of the skies at high speeds at a lopsided angle almost akin to a nosedive. The whiplash sent Nico sprawling across the sand, he grabbed his sword and thrusted it deep in the ground to keep from rolling even farther across the Palladium. Maybe it was the rockets malfunctioning, or maybe the turbines, whatever it was, he didn't quite understand the specifics on how this floating rock worked, but surely this thing couldn't rely only on one piece of engineering alone there had to be some sort of backup in case something like this happened.

The gods must've read Nico's mind, because the Palladium bounced right back into its normal flight patterns. That was until another explosion rocked the east side of the fortress sending them in another spiral towards the Earth.

Nico jumped to his feet and ran towards a flaming Leo Valdez. He was burning monsters away with his fists meanwhile Calypso was hacking away at demons with a screwdriver. That woman was even deadlier with that small tool than any demigod with a sword.

"That fucker is trying to destroy the propulsion system and kill us all!" Leo screamed. "I have to get to the engine room, they must be trying to sabotage us from the inside!"

Nico nodded and cleared a path of monsters surrounding the mansion about eight hundred yards away. He slammed through the front doors of the home and Leo led the way from there dragging Calypso by the wrist. Nico had to cut down a dozen monsters that led to the back doors of the mansion, where they reached two doors that led underground in the backyard garden like a storm cellar.

The three entered the underground room and into a dark long corridor lit up by flashing red lights along the ceiling. Leo brought them to a large boiler room where they found at least six lizard demons setting up some kind of electric bomb near one of the large mechanical cogs. As soon as one of the monsters saw the three, the ugliest of them held up a sort of detonator. Nico didn't react as quick as Leo, who pushed him and Calypso back all the way to the other side of the corridor.

The monster pushed the red button on the detonator and Nico caught a quick glimpse of the explosion that rocked the entire room. A wave of pure force and flames swallowed Leo and the monsters whole in a fraction of a second.

Nico rolled over on the ground and covered Calypso with his body to protect her from the blast. He turned to look over his shoulder expecting the flames to burn the two of them alive, instead what Nico saw was Leo standing at the end of the hall with his arms open sucking in all of the flames like a vacuum into every pore of his body.

"AHH GOD DAMMIT!" Nico screamed, even with Leo absorbing a greater portion of the fire, Nico still felt the heat sizzle on his back through his shirt and the back of his neck from some of the flames that got past Leo.

When the fires finally dissipated, Calypso ran her hand across his bare back. It was sore and tender to the touch.

"Did you know I'm fireproof?" She asked with smile. "I'm a Titan you know."

Nico stood up and stumbled on his bare feet, the concrete floor was like a hot stove. "You could've mentioned that before I tried to save you."

"Nico! Help me out over here!" Leo screamed from the engine room who was hunched over a huge mechanical device running his fingers along the huge engines, pumps, and electrical wires running along the sides.

"This is the main engine." Leo said. "By the looks of how off balance we are right now, the monsters must have destroyed one already. That means there are only three left, but if this one gets any more damaged than it already is-"

Nico couldn't believe how lucky he was to partake in such an extravagant party. "We go splat, I'm guessing?"

"More like boom." Calypso rested her hand on Leo's exhausted shoulder.

"Exactly." Leo said grimly.

"I gave you a chance to save yourselves." The stranger from earlier creeped into the room silently. Nico figured that this guy must have tiptoed into the room waiting for a chance to comment on the situation.

He held his sword in one hand and what looked like a molotov cocktail in the other, with a flammable green liquid inside. Greek fire, Nico guessed.

Nico took his sword and lunged at the armored man, who simply parried the attack with his long blade. He cocked his other arm back and let loose the fiery cocktail. It landed behind Leo and caused an explosion so immense and so powerful that shockwave hit Nico with enough energy that he flew across the room and smacked his head against the wall leaving him unconscious for a good ten seconds.

When he awoke from the daze, the enemy had disappeared.

"TAKE CALYPSO AND RUN!" Leo was screaming at the top of his lungs as he tugged at a large bronze piece of shrapnel from the fortresses engine with his bare hands, thick red blood trickling down from his palms all the way to his elbows as green flames were eating consuming everything and making its way outside of the underground room. "GET TO THE ESCAPE PODS!"

The engine groaned, and green flames began bursting through melted screws, the entire room was threatening to consume them all alive. Nico grabbed Calypso by the hand and dragged her out of the control room.

They barely got past the door when the engine exploded behind them and filled the corridors with Greek fire. A giant steel containment door came crashing down just in time and prevented the fire from spreading to the upper levels of the vessel. The last he saw of Leo was his red eyes being swallowed by the waves of blazing debree.

"LEO!" Calypso screamed, tears were rolling down her eyes.

"Calypso, no!" Nico wrapped his arms around her waist to stop her from trying to tear down the doors with her bare hands. "He'll be alright!"

The truth was he wasn't sure if he was lying or not. Nico knew he wasn't dead but for all he knew, Leo could be on the verge of the afterlife.

The Palladium made a loud groaning noise and suddenly the entire fortress tilted at a forty degree angle to the right, taking Nico off balance. He slid across the floor and landed on the containment doors. His palms burned against the scalding hot steel. Calypso reached down and grabbed Nico by the shirt. She tossed him across the corridor where he grabbed onto the threshold of the two cellar doors.

He had to pull her through the cellar back up to the surface. He fell to his knees on the Palladiums soft grass and just barely missed a giant axe that sliced the hairs on his neck clean in half, nearly decapitating him. The blue armored earthborn monster carrying it, charged forward in a second attempt but Nico pulled out his sword and drove it right under his ribs and straight through his back.

Calypso picked up the man's giant axe, which was almost as tall as she was, and threw it with deadly precision into a lizard demon's chest a couple feet away.

"Lets go!" Calypso ordered.

Nico stood up but was quickly kicked in the chest by some sort of flying demon.

Calypso snatched a random knife off the ground and threw it at the monster which burst into dust in the sky. The forces of monsters seemed to be getting thicker and thus making it harder to navigate this flying rock.

Nico gasped for air but it felt thinner than before. He looked up and noticed that the flickering protective force field around the fortress was the only thing preventing them from burning up as they began to descend to the ground. All around him, there were monsters fighting automatons on the mansions grounds ripping each other to shreds through metal and blood.

Calypso grabbed Nico's forearm and navigated him through the chaos. He dodged blades and multiple arrows while slicing apart intruders that got in their way.

"The escape room!" Calypso pointed to a shed a hundred yards away.

Nico nodded and they sprinted for the doors. The fortress suddenly tilted back and the two slid even farther away from their exit.

The grounds began to flood with even more demons making the task at hand even that much harder. Calypso pounced on a seven foot tall demon and stabbed him repeatedly in the face until he looked even uglier than before. Nico on the other hand was using his underworldly powers to stab monsters through the chest with giant black spikes. He slashed at other monsters with his black sword while Calypso watched his back with a sword twice her size that she found littered on the ground.

Nico had to face the reality that the two of them no matter how powerful they were and how many robots they had on their side, were badly outnumbered.

A freakishly large grey skinned demon flew in from the sky and tore up one of Calypso's silver dragons right before her eyes. Calypso charged this enormous beast with a tiny blade as big as of the monsters talons. Nico sprinted after her but the thing smacked her with his giant scaly palm. She fell back into the grass with a sickening thud.

Nico lifted his sword above his head ready to swing but the winged giant smacked him around like a rag doll.

 _This was it_ , Nico thought to himself. He was going to be smacked to death. How imaginative.

Well at least the fates had a sense of humor. Just before the monster brought down his fists in a arch, the very earth beneath them exploded, and a giant bronze metallic claw began to crawl its way from the grass and dirt. Nico watched in amazement and horror as the biggest dragon he had ever seen was born from the dirt. A bronze autonomous dragon about a hundred and fifty feet long snarled and blew flames in almost every direction turning its enemies into ash.

Then there was Leo, riding on the back of the dragon like it was a pegasus. Festus, the dragon, clawed away at hundreds of monsters and tore away at their flesh with his dagger like teeth. Leo disembarked the dragons back and ran towards Calypso.

"We're just above San Francisco," Leo said as he helped Calypso onto Festus's back. "You two need to get out of here! Ride to Camp Jupiter, you'll be safe there."

San Francisco? That could not be a coincidence, right?

Leo signaled for Nico to climb aboard as well.

"What about you?" Calypso asked.

"I need to try and stabilize the Palladium," Leo said with a dark look on his face. "Or it'll smash against California with enough power to disintegrate everything within a hundred miles."

"I won't leave you here alone." Calypso said, she attempted to slide off the metallic hide but leather straps appeared from beneath the bronze plates and wrapped around her waist fastening her down to the dragon. "Leo! Let me down now!"

Calypso was on edge of tears, she pulled at the straps holding her back and pounded at the metal with her fists.

"I'll be alright." Leo struggled to make the promise. "Once Festus drops you off at the Camp, he's going to come back and help me out here. I'll find you once I get the Palladium up and running again."

"Leo! I swear to the gods, if you don't let me down from here—" The titaness cried.

A single tear slid down Leo's face. "I can't risk putting you in danger, I'm sorry."

He signaled for Nico to board once more.

He shook his head. Nico refused to leave his friend alone on this burning battlefield. If he was going down he was not going to go down alone, to be honest he much preferred getting out of this in one piece. "You can't do this alone."

Leo nodded and slapped Festus's metallic hide.

"Leo!" Calypso screamed. With one flap of his gigantic wings Festus took off and passed through the Palladium's barriers. Leo watched until he could no longer make the dragons shape. Nico looked back and almost regretted not getting on the dragon.

Why did he have to act so brave sometimes?

Meanwhile the Palladium began to spin out of control.

"I have to stabilize the turbines." Leo yelled over the numbing noise. "But we have to clear out the rest of these freaks, or they'll only tear apart what I fix! It's a vicious fricking circle!"

Nico nodded and took to action, tearing apart the small army of demons with his black sword. Each of them seemed practically useless in battle, as if this were the first and last time that they had actually seen a fight. The small army seemed more focused on playing search and destroy with the key parts of the fortress.

Leo burst into flames and took off into the unknown. Likely to try and fix something that seemed rather unfixable. The final battle against this army of monsters lasted seven minutes max, Nico slashed down the final monsters that stuck around long enough. Many others had abandoned ship just as mysteriously as they appeared in the first place.

This seemed almost too easy. He looked around, most of the automatons were gone and torn apart only a few were still standing. Nico cut through the remainder of the opposing force and took a moment to catch his breath. This was the most exercise he had gotten in two months, all he wanted to do now was puke.

When the smoke cleared, the enemies were gone, all except for one lone warrior treading through the fires and wreckage of the Palladium slashing through the remaining automatons with his scythe.

The world stood still. Nico froze, his body went absolutely numb. It felt almost as if he were walking through sand, making it nearly impossible to move.

As the smoke began to clear, the man in the near distance walked towards Nico, his feet carelessly stepping in the monsterous ashes of all his fellow soldiers in this battle. He was protected by golden armor that glimmered under the natural light of the stars above them. He had a face that was hidden under a shadow of darkness, but those piercing gold eyes staring back at him seemed all too dangerous. They were eerily familiar...

The first and only name that came to mind...Kronos. The Mad Titan was as good as dead, beyond repair. This must have been some nut job high on titan worshiping.

"Leave," Nico managed to speak even though his teeth felt like it had been wired shut. "Your armies have been destroyed. Leave this place, NOW."

The man looked around and then right back at Nico with a smile. "My armies? No, my armies would not have gone down so easily, you have yet to witness the true magnitude of my army. This battalion was merely a house warming party."

Nico scowled and tried to lift his sword but his body movements were feeling sluggish. "What—what do you want?"

The man tilted his head. "Just doing a little redecorating. This place... it's beautiful. Rather it was...it could have been so much better, I reckon."

One half of the entire palladium exploded in the distance in a blinding flash of white light splitting the fortress straight down the middle. Leo's mansions crumbled and fell to the earth like it was made of Lego's.

He sniffed the air like it was the scent of a freshly baked pie straight out of the oven. "It's been too long since I have had this much fun."

The ground under Nico's feet rumbled. "Who are you?"

Anger spread across the mans face followed by a fake elusive smile. "It hasn't been any more than a decade and I'm already forgotten."

Nico was afraid that he knew exactly who this man was. "Kronos?"

The force field surrounding the palladium flickered, melting away slowly... and then disappeared completely. Wind whipped through Nico's hair as the fortress began to officially descend into a very dangerous free fall. Nico fell on his face and dug his fingers into his dirt trying not to get whisked off the ground by the spirit of the winds.

Kronos walked towards Nico with no effort at all. "I think it's time to say our goodbyes, nephew."

More explosions rocked the Palladium and it began to split into several different sections that crumbled against the intense speeds. He ripped Nico off the ground by the neck and walked over to the edge of what was left of Leo's creation. Nico saw stars dance across his eyes as his vision began to turn black. This was twice in one day that he would be lifted off of his feet and nearly die of strangulation.

Kronos's grip tightened. Nico felt the Titan's grip suddenly release letting him succumb to the strength of the winds and hurtle towards the earth. That was until Leo grabbed Nico's arm and pulled him back to the somewhat safety of what was left of the Palladium. A column of flames shot from his palm, aimed at Kronos. The titan was blindsided and tripped off the edge, nowhere to be seen again.

"Thanks, but were still going to die." Nico yelled over the roar of the wind.

"Stop being a downer." Leo responded. "Can you teleport us the hell out of here?!"

Nico tried to shadow travel but for some reason he couldn't access his abilities. "No, I can't!"

"Well then... we're doomed." Leo admitted with a face full of surrender which did not boost Nico's confidence one bit.

Nico laid on his back, maybe it was time to accept death. He had dodged it for so long, why not now? This demigod thing could only go on for so long. "You're supposed to be the upbeat one."

Leo looked over the edge and suddenly a devious smile crossed his face. "We have to jump!"

Nico figured that this guy finally went crazy. It was bound to happen sooner or later, the pressures of this life had gotten to much stronger people before. "Why on Earth would we do that?"

"Drones!" Leo laughed. "We have a forty six percent survival rate!"

"Only forty-six?" Nico frowned, why the hell not? His current rate of survival was sitting at a solid zero percent.

"Its either forty-six or no chance whatsoever! Come on! Trust me!" Leo stood up and fought against the strong winds. He smirked and jumped over the edge without any hesitation.

Nico looked over the side. Leo disappeared into the clouds, he gave it a couple of seconds and decided he must have still been alive because he couldn't sense his almost certain death. The ground was getting awfully closer than ever, he could most definitely make out the tall Californian hills from the sky. It was his turn to jump now. His legs wobbled like a newborn baby as he struggled to stay standing upright.

"I can't let you leave."

The voice sent shivers down Nico's spine. He turned and saw a ghost, dressed in dark leather armor.

Nico struggled to make words from his thoughts. Apparently the ghost didn't have time to wait for a response.

The last thing Nico would see...Percy Jackson, impaling him with a spear.

The sound of the bronze tip slicing through his shirt and into his flesh, forever seared into his mind. The memory quickly followed by the cruel sinister smile that would cross Percy's face as he watched him fall off the edge of the Palladium.

He knew he would die in some sort of horrible fashion one day but...he just never thought it would happen like this, at the hands of one of his oldest friends.

Kronos. Percy Jackson.

The dead should stay dead.


	7. Chapter 7

**REYNA**

New Rome was quicker than a 90 second microwavable meal when it came to defending its borders against an attack.

As the wreckage of the Palladium came crashing down from the skies and erupted in plumes of fire and ash on the roofs of the city, a platoon of 50 Roman soldiers had set up a 360 defensive perimeter around the camp and armed a squad of Centurions on their pegasi in preparation for any airborne attacks that might have come their way.

Through all the panic and chaos, Adriana was yelling commands to her soldiers and successfully calming down the scared citizens one small group at a time.

Reyna was eager to climb aboard a pegasus in order to find Leo but everytime she boarded one, Adriana would give the creature a quick stare and it would buck, sending her sprawling through the dirt on her butt. Reyna's face was flushed with embarrassment as she sat there and gave the praetor a Hades worthy death stare. The fact the young girl merely smiled and went back to calming the city, frustrated her.

Adriana clearly figured out that Reyna was pregnant, it must have been some kind of goddess of love type of supernatural ability. The only problem with this is that Adriana was now trying to keep her from jumping into a fight, and anybody who knows Reyna, knows she never backs out from a fight.

Although nobody seemed to be more agitated than Calypso, she began fighting off demigods left and right whenever they tore off the top of a Pegasus. Apparently she was trying to find Leo but the soldiers weren't willing to let her run off into the onslaught singlehanded. Reyna understood how she must have felt, had anyone fought Reyna when Percy was in danger, they surely would not have enjoyed the aftermath.

What remained of the Palladium took a total of fifteen minutes to crash down on Camp Jupiter and the surrounding areas. There was no visible enemy, yet that did not exclude them from casualties. During the fallout, Frank took to the skies and rescued Leo Valdez. He was trapped in a rope net screaming curses like a sailor as he dragged behind him, four utterly destroyed drones. Reyna was relieved if not a little humored at the sight.

That feeling was quickly overridden by the screeching cries of the citizens of New Rome as they witnessed a giant bronze dragon swooping in from the sky like a monster from their worst nightmares. She knew it was Festus but the people had no idea, it took forever to calm them down. That's when she noticed the limp body strapped to the saddle aboard the dragon. She had been so relieved about Leo, she failed to notice Nico di Angelo fighting for his life with a ghastly wound in his gut.

She sprinted towards her fallen friend and tore him off the dragon. His entire torso was drenched in dark blood, his eyes fluttered weakly and the breaths from his mouth were so short and raspy, Reyna couldn't help but think the worst possible outcome. She carried him to the ground and cradled the boy in her arms. His weak body just barely clinging to life, the sight was all too familiar…

Reyna only remembered her haunting screams for the medics. She was so caught up in a hazy flashback, the incident replaying over and over again in her mind, she didn't notice when three children of Apollo had snatched the son of Hades from her grasp and carried him away.

She sat there on her knees and pictured Percy laying in her arms. The last image of her boyfriend just before he was enveloped by complete darkness.

It took a while but eventually Reyna recovered from her breakdown and made sure that Nico was treated for by the medics. He would be alright they assured her, yet that didn't make her feel any better. After an hour, they notified Reyna that Nico was alive but he would be subjected to a coma for an unknown period of time. The celestial bronze wound had pierced through more than just his body.

 _Maybe_ , they said. _Maybe_ he would wake up. _Maybe_ he would live to fight another day. _Maybe_.

Then came Leo's statement on what happened aboard the Palladium. It was Kronos he said. That name was enough to turn Reyna's knees to jelly.

The fates certainly had a problem with this generation of demigods.

The so called attack on Camp Jupiter never came, but that didn't ease anybody's tensions one bit. Guard posts around the camp were to be manned for the next two days at Adriana's orders. She did not want to risk the safety of her people to any surprise attacks that the enemy had to offer.

Reyna thought the young Praetor handled the entire ordeal pretty well. The real test on Adriana's command would come from the emergency Senate meeting that was called upon by many of the worried leaders so that they could figure out what exactly happened and how to proceed from there.

Information on the attack was distributed among the Roman leadership. Them not taking the news very well was an easy way of describing what went on in that room. Heck, even Reyna had trouble swallowing all the details on what happened aboard the Palladium.

Kronos returning for a third time was a lot to take in. It was like a terrible tv show that should have ended a long time ago yet it just got renewed for another season.

Reyna stood at Adriana's side the entire time as she was bombarded with thousands of questions. But they knew just as much information as Leo had given to them, which was next to nothing. He only briefly overheard the conversation between the Titan lord and Nico before he blasted him off of the fortress.

"The Greeks told us that they killed him!" Dakota yelled from his seat in the Senate. Reyna guessed that the loss of his Kool-Aid in all the chaos agitated him more than the attack. "Now ol' kid-eater himself shows up all of a sudden raining hell on us?! We need to take the fight to him before he comes back to finish the job!"

"Don't trust a _Graecus_ to do a Roman's job!" Another shouted. The senate rumbled in agreement.

"Hold on! How do we know that this is even, _you know who_. Maybe Leo isn't sure what he saw!" A skeptic demigod in full armor spoke.

Leo stood up and Reyna noticed something that she hadn't before. He seemed to be missing his entire left forearm from the elbow down like it had been cut clean off. The only thing that replaced it was a bronze circular piece of metal that looked eerily like the tip of a soda bottle without its cap.

"I can't be certain it was him…I never met grandaddy time, but I felt the effects of his power. It was strong, so strong you felt like you wouldn't be able to move ever again. I overheard Nico's conversation with the guy. You can ask the Ghost King personally when he wakes up."

"If he ever does!" Someone shouted. "He's a vegetable!"

"Enough!" Adriana shouted over the many overlapping voices. "We will not be jumping to conclusions. We can only hope that the ambassador to Pluto, makes a steady recovery."

The praetor went on speaking to the people but Reyna's attention was fixated on something else. Rather someone else. She had been standing there for a while, nobody noticed her but Reyna did.

Annabeth stood out in the crowd. Her piercing stare was fixed on Reyna from the distance. She stood in the back of the Senate with her arms crossed as she listened in on the arguing, an out of place spectator amongst all the chaos.

Reyna half expected her to show up in full Greek goddess garment, maybe a beautiful white dress weaved together by Athena herself and arms full of bracelets melded together by Hephaestus, with gold necklaces draping her collar like she was a movie star. Something that displayed the fact that she was screaming for the world's attention, Reyna was looking for a reason to hate her. Instead she wore a simple orange shirt and jeans with a knife strapped to her side, as if she were an ordinary person and not a never aging being of immense power.

She stared at Reyna in a way that she couldn't describe. Was it hate or pity? She couldn't be sure. Whichever it was, Reyna couldn't stand it.

"We have company." She told Adriana with a certain slickness to her words and the room went quiet as they looked for an intruder. "The goddess, Annabeth Chase, has blessed us with her presence."

Adriana turned and saw her, the girl hesitated for a second but made no effort to bow. Was that even necessary considering the fact that the daughter of Athena had just been made an immortal a couple years ago?

"Annabeth Chase." Adriana acknowledged her with open arms. "Welcome to New Rome, I wasn't even aware that you were here."

Annabeth waved her hand at all those who stared at her from the rows of seats. She didn't seem at all phased by the many looks she was recieving.

"I just arrived." Annabeth said as she walked down the aisle of the Senate house, her gaze finally left Reyna. "I heard about what happened and came as soon as possible. Even though Zeus-excuse me, _Jupiter_ has strictly forbidden it for most of the gods and goddesses on Olympus. I just had to make sure my friends were alright."

The blood in Reyna's veins grew hotter. There was an unresolved anger building up in her chest. Maybe it had to due with the fact that this woman was the source of grief to Percy all those years ago.

"I'm sorry about your home." Annabeth stopped at Leo's side and put her hand on his shoulder. "Hephaestus was very proud of your work."

Leo still looked a little shaken up from his experience earlier that day but he still worked up a sly grin. If there was anyone you could count on being upbeat no matter what, it was him. "I still got some more bright ideas to work on...maybe a real life helicarrier or Deathstar? But you more than anyone knows that nothing lasts forever. Right, _Lady Annabeth?_ "

Annabeth hugged the man and shoved him away playfully. Then she turned her attention back to the people. "But I've also come with some ill desired news in regards to the return of Kronos or as many of you may know him, Saturn, King of the Titans."

The temperature of the room dropped at the very mention of the name.

"Camp Half-Blood fought against him on Olympus years ago, the results were that his essence had thought to have been scattered so far across the universe that we rejoiced in the thought that he would never return within our lifetimes. Yet he is the one responsible for sabotaging the Palladium and attacking Camp Jupiter. The gods have taken note of his presence, but with their attentions pulled in _different directions_ , they have allowed me to come by and task out a group of heroes to find the Titan King, and if the fates are kind, hopefully we can eradicate the threat once and for all…"

"The last time Saturn rose, Camp Jupiter fought against his forces for years just like the Greeks." Reyna spoke as she stepped forward and took the spotlight unintentionally. "There were dozens of battles and raids, not to mention countless deaths at the hands of the uprising. But you expect us to issue out a quest in hopes that maybe some of us will be lucky enough to kill the Titan King on the first go?"

"Yes," Annabeth answered. "I believe that Camp Jupiter has the ability to stop this fight before we lose anymore people, because we already know how Kronos has risen."

"What are you talking about, _Graecus_! How did he rise?!" An angry Lare shouted.

"The answer has been in front of you for weeks." Annabeth replied. "Your praetor already knows this."

Adriana wasn't taken aback by the response. She looked down at her table and gripped her knife. Reyna came to the same conclusion almost instantly.

"If Kronos has suddenly risen, it is more than likely that my fellow Praetor, _your leader_ , Isaac may have had a hand in it."

You wouldn't think that a single theory would cause so much commotion but that one sentence was enough to set off the entire Senate. They erupted into loud arguments of confusion and treason. Nope, the Senate had not changed much since Reyna's departure from the Legion.

She noticed Adriana was becoming increasingly frustrated as the people clammered their opinions about Isaac down each others throats. The young girl held her composure though, she spoke a single command to Aurum and Argentum, _speak_ , and the two autonoumous dogs opened their mouths with a metallic whirring. They let out a bark so loud that even the Lares eardrums must have popped.

Adriana tapped at the table in front of her with a knife softly. "As many of you know, Isaac is the last remaining descendant from a very long bloodline that stretches across time and back to Saturn. Many of us are descendants of the Titan king ourselves because of our parentage but it is different with Isaac. For some unknown reason his blood runs thick with Saturn's essence more than either one of us. It has granted him with powers similar to the Titan and more than likely makes him susceptible to his control."

"Maybe it's not even him," Arthur chipped in. "For all we know he's still out on his quest and has nothing to do with this attack."

"He was never on a quest." Adriana admitted as she turned to Reyna. "He has been missing for approximately a month and half…ever since the incident. Two days prior to the death of Percy Jackson."

"This is absurd! Absolutely disgraceful!" A lare shouted and disappeared with a flash.

The other ghosts of Rome murmured in a agreement a disappeared just as the first one did. They heard all that they needed.

"If we find Isaac," Adriana started to say but she looked down and you could see in her eyes a glint of despair. "It's possible that you may find Saturn. It is also possible he may not have required Isaac to undergo the same physical transformation as the previous host due to his heritage."

Annabeth nodded. "Our intel suspects that Isaac may not have been required to have bathed in the River Styx in order to host the Titan king. Which means he can be killed all the same."

"Then a quest will be arranged." Frank stood from his seat in the Senate. "I'll go."

The room was silent. Nobody dared to oppose him, if there was one person that they truly believed in, it was Frank. Many people looked up to the former praetor like no other.

"One thing I want to make clear," Frank said as he turned to Annabeth. "We aren't a legion of hitmen. We aren't going to _eradicate the threat_ , as if Isaac was never one of us. There may be another way of doing things, some way that doesn't end up with my friend _dead_ and I'll lead the charge."

"Its possible. But the more logical strategy would be to destroy Saturn if the opportunity is given." Annabeth said.

"Logical." Reyna scoffed. "You think the _logical_ thing to do would be to assassinate our elected leader?"

"It is the quickest way of getting rid of the threat once and for all. We won't have to fight a third titanomachy. Bargaining with him would only complicate things."

"Did you kill _Luke Castella_ n when he caved in to the Titan lords will?" Reyna shot back.

Annabeth's eyes flared at the mention of the name. "I didn't, but I should have when I had the chance."

"Then you know that we are not going to kill our leader and friend before exploring all the options, you-"

Adriana gripped Reyna's forearm and gave her a look of caution. "Annabeth Chase, we will leave the details of the quest to the chosen heroes."

Annabeth disregarded Reyna coldly.

"You have served your terms as Praetor, Frank. You are retired from the legion, we cannot ask you to risk your life for this journey." Adriana said.

Frank still stood tall. "A small portion of my term as Praetor was spent with Isaac as my partner. I know him more than most. I will not subjecate him to a manhunt if it is not absolutely necessary."

Adriana took his words into thought. Reyna figured that Adriana was hoping he would say something like that, and based on the look of her face, she would have given everything to go on the quest herself but she couldn't leave the camp without a leader.

"Does anybody object with Frank Zhang leading this quest along with his two elected partners?"

Not a single person said a word.

"Then it is settled. Frank Zhang, choose your companions and bring our Praetor home…or destroy the Titan threat. The choice is _yours_ …"

* * *

Adriana didn't settle for anymore questions from the people, she had passed on all the information she had and issued out orders to all those that would be standing post.

Reyna left as soon as the meeting was adjourned. That didn't stop Annabeth Chase from reappearing outside of the Senate House and right in her path. The Greek girl was leaning against the cities directory map with her NY baseball hat covering golden curls.

"You're quick to leave." Annabeth noted, she began to follow Reyna like the two were just a couple of friends going for a stroll through town.

Why couldn't she just have said what needed to be said and then left? Reyna sighed. Did she really need to speak with her one on one?

"I have a small appetite when it comes to sitting through those meetings." She responded and looked back at Annabeth. Yeaup, she was still following her like the white on rice.

"But you're good at it nonetheless." Annabeth said with a surprisingly non-sarcastic voice. "The people of Rome still follow you."

Reyna continued onward to the infirmary to visit Nico. "Is that why you're here? To compliment me on my leadership skills?."

"Was the issue of Kronos not enough of a reason for me to drop by?"

Reyna stopped in her tracks, this wasn't the reason Annabeth came to Camp Jupiter. No, there was something else. "You told us nothing we didn't already know."

"Well by the look of things, I'd say my intervention was very much needed. It really sped up the entire process don't you think?"

"Is that so?" Reyna asked with a false smile.

Annabeth didn't break eye contact with her. "Look I know you don't like me-"

Reyna laughed and shook her head. "You're wrong. I could care less about you."

Annabeth smirked and put her hands on her hip scanning Reyna from head to toe. "Oh yeah, you _definitely_ are Percy's type."

That comment was enough to warrant a knife to the face. Lucky for Annabeth, Terminus confiscated her weapon. "Okay, were done here. Return home to Olympus, Annabeth."

Reyna walked away from her, walking away was the best option.

"I know you're pregnant, Reyna…I know its _his_."

There it was. There's the reason she came.

Reyna stopped in her tracks and turned. Annabeth's stormy eye's were plain. Expressionless. What could the daughter of Athena possibly get out of this subject?

"Why did you come back? Why didn't you stay in Chicago?" Annabeth asked, it almost sounded sympathetic.

Reyna didn't know how to answer. Percy and her talked often about leaving the life, but it never happened. If she had known she was pregnant, Reyna would have never left the safety of her home.

"Neither of us knew."

" _Still_ ," Annabeth walked forward but the goddess hesitated coming any closer to Reyna. "You guys had the opportunity to make a life out there! It would have been dangerous, yes, but if anybody could have done it…It would have been the two of you."

She knew that Annabeth's words were the truth. Percy and her could have made a living in the mortal world, taking care of themselves would not have been an issue.

"Why do you care?"

Annabeth faltered. "Percy and I-it didn't work out between us, but I still…I had feelings for him, feelings that would never go away. I always hoped he would get his happy ending…"

"You still love him." Reyna scoffed softly, she couldn't meet her eyes as she said those words.

Annabeth nodded, the brim of her eyes soaked with soft tears. She had yet to become as cold and heartless as many of the immortals on Olympus. She was still human.

Reyna sighed. "He had a certain effect on people."

"You're damn right." Annabeth laughed past the tears.

Reyna looked down at her feet and walked away. She didn't know what to say to this women.

"Can I ask one more thing?" Annabeth pleaded from behind.

Reyna stopped and nodded.

"Do you know?" She gestured towards Reyna's stomach.

It was a harmless question but Reyna felt like it was a secret that she needed to keep to herself.

"A girl." Reyna finally answered. "Percy's having a daughter."

" _A daughter_." Annabeth repeated sadly and looked up to the skies. "We hoped for one, a really really long time ago…we were going to name her Sophia..."

Annabeth wiped her tears and smiled at Reyna. It wasn't an ordinary smile, Reyna looked deeper and saw the face of envy in this girl. When Annabeth looked at her she probably saw what could have been. A different life with Percy. She wanted what Reyna had. But that road ended a long time ago, it was a path she could no longer drive and she pained to make the journey once more.

"You may not like it, but I'll be around. I will make things right...for Percy." She disappeared in a shower of golden mist.

Reyna gave the conversation some thought before she finally made her way to the infirmary.

On an average day, Nico looked deathly. So he pretty much looked the same in comatose state. The medics had cleaned him up and put him into some fresh clothes. She had never seen him wear so many colors before, it was usually all black. They inserted an IV into his left arm and even combed back his hair, better revealing the upper half of his face.

Reyna was thankful that he had pulled through. Just the thought of losing him, it had almost broken her completely. After all they went through during the war, the pair had gotten closer than she would have ever expected when she first met the boy.

He was strong, she knew that he would wake up given time. If anybody could slip out of Thanatos' firm grasp, it would be the son of Hades. His was spirit was strong, stronger than even Reyna.

"He'll be alright." Frank appeared at the doorway. "Nico is a different level of tough."

Reyna smiled and nodded. "That's the easy way of saying it."

"I have a feeling that he'll outlive either of us." Frank chuckled as he took a seat on the opposite side of Nico's hospital bed.

"You shouldn't have volunteered." Reyna told him grimly. "You live in the city now, not the barracks. You shouldn't be fighting anymore."

"We are warriors-" Frank started to say but Reyna cut him off.

"We are warriors, but that doesn't mean we need to jump in situations that'll get you killed at the first opportunity you get."

He nodded and smiled. "Demigods have always been a little eager to jump into battles, there's no doubt about that. But we don't always get to choose the easy life. I have to do this, otherwise somebody else would have and I _can't_ have anybody dying out of this. This is personal."

"Have you told Hazel?" Reyna asked.

Frank looked down and frowned, a glint of sadness showed in his eyes. "I haven't."

"She'll be angry."

"Yes she will." Frank smiled sadly. "But if I don't finish this quest and Saturn returns with an army…he'll kill _everyone_ , Hazel included. There will be no exceptions in this war. I'll be damned if anyone comes barging into my home and starts putting my family in danger."

"Spoken like a true son of Mars." Reyna teared up just a bit. "I wish you didn't have to do this, Frank."

"I wish I didn't have to either. But if it means protecting my city, my friends, you…and your child, I'm happy to do it."

Reyna laughed sadly. "Does _everyone_ already know?"

Frank smiled and stood. "I heard it from a very little birdy."

"Of course you did." Reyna stood up and hugged Frank. "I expect you to tell me all about your adventures once you get back, alright? Go kick some Titan butt."

"I will." Frank laughed.

He said goodbye to Nico just before he exited the room leaving Reyna alone. She put her hand on Nico's cheeks and said goodbye too.

Just as she passed the threshold of the room, Nico gasped and grabbed the sheets of his bed.

Reyna ran to his side and had to stop him from jumping out of the bed like he just was given a dose of adrenaline straight to the heart. "Calm down, Nico, you're going to hurt yourself!"

"He's alive!" Nico began hyperventilating. "I-I saw him!"

"We know about Kronos." Reyna assured him. "We are handling the situation as we speak."

He looked confused. "Kronos? I mean yes! But _not_ him…Percy…P-Percy's alive."


	8. Chapter 8

**BIANCA**

Have you ever fell asleep for such a long time, around 10 plus years or so, but then you wake up and you still feel exhausted?

Well for Bianca, it was almost as if her body was trying to tell her: _Hey, sorry Bibi. I know your brain just got up and all but we've had a pretty long night. So were just gonna take the rest of the day off! Have fun trying to survive without us!_

Being resurrected was such a pain in the behind, heck Bianca's had more luck trying to teach Cerebrus to be a show dog compared to out here.

How was Bianca supposed to find her brother if she couldn't even get up from her rack. Would he be happy to see her? Or angry because she chose rebirth? The thought of seeing him again after all this time scared her like nothing else, but she couldn't be any more excited to see the annoying kid again. First things first, she had to get out of bed and you haven't felt completely useless until you've lost the feeling of everything below the neck.

After some very thorough concentration she managed to will her body to roll out of her cot but she collapsed on her face as soon as her feet touched the ground, she groaned in pain and cursed her bad luck which seemed to be coming after her in the form of one small miserable event at a time.

It was the small things in life that had been annoying her recently. Ever since she had came back to the land of the living forty-eight hours ago, she had to suffer through the sharp wind chills, wild animals that wanted to tear her limbs apart like a chew toy, and skull splitting migraines that made her want to throw her head against a rock just to end it all.

In Elysium, there was no such thing as suffering or pain, there was only luxury and peace. Bianca had almost forgotten that being alive was kind of overrated.

"Thy should be more careful...the floor is very cold." A female voice said.

Bianca groaned, her left cheek squished against the freezing tile flooring and her body shivering. The air seemed to be funneling into the cabin from somewhere. "No it's okay, it gets pretty warm once you really let the pain sink in."

"I told thee to get more rest, save thy energy, you will be needing it in the coming days."

Bianca was't the only one that returned from the otherside.

Zoë was laying on her own small green cot across the room, with only the upper half of her face poking out from underneath her thick blue blanket shivering from the sharp cold that filled the air of the room that they had taken occupation of. Her sharp dark brown eyes were twinkling with amusement as she laid there on her side watching Bianca like she was watching a cat chase a red laser. Being a source of someone else's entertainment frustrated her deeply.

"Don't strain yourself, Zoë. I'm only numb from the neck down, fighting for my life." Bianca muttered as she tried to lift her arm off the ground with little success.

"The gods would not have chosen to revive you if the plan was to have thee die of a tiny bit of cold." Zoë smiled softly and stood up from her cot with her blanket wrapped over her small shoulders. She peaked her hands out from under the cover and lifted Bianca by the waist and tossed her back into the uncomfortable green cot. Zoë was very strong, much to Bianca's surprise. "Thy body is still adjusting to it's reformation."

"It's been two days." Bianca said staring at the ceiling, there was a hole in the roof where you could see right past the treetops and stare at the infinite stars in the skies. Not too long ago, Zoë was up there. Bianca reminded herself to ask her newly revived friend how that felt. "You'd think my body would have adjusted to waking up from a light nap. It's not a very hard concept to grasp. How am I supposed to fight a cyclops if I can't pick up a bow? Or a giant lion? Or better yet, how am I supposed to run away when a huge metal robot is trying to step on me!"

Zoë tucked her in with a spare quilt that they had laying around. She had been like a kind older sister to Bianca, ever since she woke up. Zoë would watch over her making sure that she survived day to day without making her feel like a kid and she really appreciated that. "You whine like a child, Bianca. The past is the past, the chances of Talos returning to finish the job is…possible, yet highly astronomical at the very least."

"I'm thirteen years old. I'm not a child." Bianca retorted with a pouted lip.

"Okay, but were you not born in the nineteen-forties?" Zoë asked with a daunting smile. "So technically thee would be around eighty years old, give or take a decade or two. Lift thy chin and act thy age, di Angelo."

"Those years don't count." Bianca muttered. "You're over two thousand years old, but I don't go around calling you granny. Maybe I should if you're intent on scolding me like one."

Zoë laughed and sat on her cot with her long graceful legs tucked underneath her. She looked surprisingly upbeat considering the fact that they were currently holed up in a small rundown cabin that just barely kept the beasts of the night at bay. Then there was the fact that they were also in the dead center of what felt like a forest that never ended. It was only tree after tree, mountain after mountain, with no civilization in sight. Bianca couldn't get the thought out of her head that maybe she wasn't really alive once more but instead she was living out some sort of endless punishment in the Underworld. It was a wild theory but certainly plausible, the judges liked to get creative with their sentences.

"Are you feeling any better?" Zoë asked as she slipped out from beneath her blanket and rummaged through the previous owners trunk of clothes to find something more suitable to wear besides just a bra and underwear. She was surprisingly fit, maybe heaven had a gym that Zoë had been hitting 24/7.

"Other than the fact that I'm just barely wrapping my mind around the fact that not too long ago my body was rotting somewhere in the junkyard of the gods…I'm doing just dandy." Bianca's body started to respond to her commands. She finally gained the control over her muscles and sat up, her fingers tingled like a hundred needles were poking into her skin.

She let out a sigh of frustration. "What are we even doing here, Zoë?"

"I've told thee already, the immediate plan is to survive until the break of dawn. We've been on our feets for too long, without our Lady Artemis' blessings we are as vulnerable as any other mortal being. If we were still out in the wilderness the wolves would have torn thy tiny body to bite size pieces." The owner of this cabin must have been a lumber jack slash cyclops because the red flannel and jeans that Zoë had put on dangled off of her like she was a child.

Bianca chose to remain in the dirt stained white dress that she woke up in two days prior. Zoë couldn't stand the dress so she tore it off a day afterwards. Something she would regret doing, considering how cold it got around here.

"I mean _here_. What are we doing _here_ topside? I was killed so long ago, and if all the stories that Nico told me are true, you should be resting amongst the stars for all eternity."

Zoë shifted uncomfortably, she twirled in her new clothes and didn't meet Bianca's stare, maybe just the idea of her being dead didn't sit too well. "I opened my eyes for the first and last time in the same forest as you. I do not presume to know why the gods have resurrected us."

"The gods?" Bianca asked. "The gods didn't do this to us. They couldn't have, this is well past direct interference and all those other mumbo jumbo excuses they have made up so that they can avoid buying their kids a card for the hundred birthdays they forgot about until the last second."

Zoë snatched up her blanket and whipped it around her like a king's magnificent cape dragging it as she paced back and forth. "This all screams divine intervention. If this is not the will of the gods, then who?"

"I-I don't know. But I chose to be reborn when I was in the Underworld, Zoë. Not even Hades has the power to breathe a past life into a soul that has been thrown into the washing machine for a second go at the world."

"A great deal of power went into our ressurections. But bringing you back…the power it required…It must have been years since thy choice of rebirth. Do you remember anything from thy second life?" Zoë asked curiously as she rolled up her sleeves.

Truth be told, Bianca couldn't recall what happened after she left the Underworld. It was all just a blur from that point on, maybe that was a good thing. She doubted that she wanted to re-experience being born out of some random women and live to remember the details.

"I don't remember anything, I only remember waking up in that clearing. The sand under my hands looked like burnt glass and there I was, with my head pounding, heart pumping and skin burning."

"It was a mutual experience. Not at all pleasant."

"Maybe it was a Titan who brought us back."

"The Titans are very strong indeed, but truth be told they are just barely stronger than the gods themselves and I don't believe any of them have been at full strength since the first Titanomachy."

"Then that leaves us back at square one, with no idea who brought us back and why we're even here." Bianca grumbled.

"We need to get in contact with the huntresses. Lady Artemis will be able to help us."

"How do we go about doing that? For all we know they could be a hundred miles away from us."

Zoë sighed. "Before I found you, I exhausted all other possible means of communication and they've all failed. It's as if the hunters just disappeared. There's one last option but I will need to wait until morning to try it. The break of dawn will allow the message to flow faster."

Bianca screamed internally. Would this madness ever end? "Can I ask you a question, Zoë?"

Zoë peaked behind the curtains and looked to the skies. "Ask away."

Bianca thought how to phrase the question... "Just before you died, Artemis' blessing turned your spirit into a constellation right? A couple people in Elysium said it was even better than any paradise that the Underworld had to offer. What was it like for you?"

"It was quite literally as close to the heavens as you could get." Zoë said with a wistful smile. "But it was different...I would stay up there like an inanimate being...but I could look down at the Earth and see people living out their lives. Every now and then I could hear them speaking to me. It's much like a prayer… I heard many voices and saw many things."

"Who did you hear?" Bianca asked.

"My sisters, Phoebe, Percy, Lady Artemis, and almost every night I heard my father yelling curses at me." She replied with a sly smile.

"Wow that sounds like it sucks." Bianca didn't mean to giggle. "I mean of course it was probably a great honor and all but looking down at the world and watching people live out there lives...it doesn't sound like eternal peace to me."

"It was more calming than you'd think." Zoë replied.

Bianca grinned mischievously. "Did you ever look down from the skies and just...see two people going at it in some meadow?"

Zoë scowled in confusion. "Going at it?"

Bianca hadn't yet mastered dirty talk but she gave it her best shot. "Yeah you know, poppin cherries, rocking the divine bed, doing the sacred tushie-"

"By the gods! Bianca, enough!" Zoë looked like she was going to hurl. "You sound like a _man_!"

"Im sorry," Bianca broke into laughter. "I was just trying to lighten the mood. If were going to be alone roaming the forests for days or even weeks, it doesn't have to be completely depressing!"

Zoë wasn't humored, she tossed her blanket at Bianca. "Find another way to amuse thyself. How about you try to find some wood to start a fire outside so that we may relay the message."

"But we still don't have any shoes! And its cold outside." Bianca groaned.

"And it will be even colder once we freeze to our deaths…again. Come now, I will set some snares for our breakfast."

Twenty minutes later, on the hunt for some good firewood, Bianca's luck caused her to trip over a large branch and fall into a wild rose bush, leaving her in small cuts everywhere. A couple of dryads laughed at her from their trees. They ran pretty fast as soon as Bianca started throwing rocks at the annoying little things. She found a decent amount of wood outside to add to the small bonfire she had just created outside. Zoë had disappeared into the woods to set up traps, but she appeared around the same time as Bianca.

She saw Zoë leaning over the fire speaking softly. Suddenly the fire burst into the air like someone had tossed a crate full of fireworks inside.

"No answers?" Bianca asked she peaked over Zoë's shoulders.

"The Hunters of Artemis, should have responded by now." Zoë looked into the flames like it was giving her bad news. "I have tried everything and they have not answered!"

She stood up and kicked the fire with her bare feet, sparks flew in all directions. Bianca thought that it must have been painful doing that but Zoë showed no reaction.

Bianca jumped to her feet and put her hand on Zoë's shoulder. "Itll be all right, maybe its just a delay. The hunters will get the messages eventually. Just give it time-"

"No!" Zoë snapped. "I have given time! I have sacrificed everything for this world, but this world demands more from me! What more could I possibly have left to offer! Why can't I finally rest?!"

Zoë looked on the edge of tears. Bianca didn't know what to say.

Zoë wiped away dry tears. "They always answer, no matter the distance. At the rate were moving through this forest, we'll starve to death before we make it out to the otherside. I will be back."

She stormed out of the clearing, leaving Bianca alone in the dark. She knew exactly how her friend was feeling, but Zoë locked her feelings from within and refused to share whatever it was that was truly bothering her.

Bianca thought it would be best to let Zoë cool off for a bit. It was after ten minutes that she finally got up to search for Zoë who had yet to come back. She walked for about five minutes when she noticed something.

Someone was standing on the hill just between two tall trees, watching her as the darkness began to seep into the dirt revealing who this man was in the rays of light from behind. He was tall and lean man wearing clothing typical to that of a hiker, a blue shirt along with cargo pants and hiking boots. The back pack in his grasp dropped as he watched her from afar like she was a ghost.

" _Bianca_?" The man called over the howling winds.

Bianca inhaled sharply, she almost hadn't recognized the stranger coming from over the hills. The chances of her running into him were astronomical, this couldn't be a coincidence. "Percy?"

He stepped into the light, there was something different about him. His presence seemed to shine over the dark forest brighter than the sunrise could as it emerged from over the hills. His face was more chiseled and his green eyes weren't as bright as they used to be. He certainly wasn't as short and scrawny like the thirteen year old she had met all those years ago, instead he was tall and more muscular with the complexion of a greek god. The years have molded him into the very ideal image of the mythical heroes from the golden-era legends.

This man was older indeed but this was him, Bianca was sure of that.

"It's not you...It can't be..." Percy's sentence trailed off, you could see a hint of doubt cross his face. Maybe he thought she was just some monster wearing her face or a vengeful spirit that escaped the Underworld. She certainly dressed the part. "Bianca is _gone_..."

He walked towards her until he was within arms reach, he gingerly held up his hands and brushed his fingertips across her cheek. She blushed at his soft touch. She wasn't a restless spirit, that was for sure. He seemed almost timid, like her skin was going to morph to reveal some hideous creature lurking underneath. Then he suddenly started pinching her cheeks and pulling at her skin like maybe it was some Scooby-Doo villain type of mask. "My face doesn't work that way, Percy."

Her face didn't peel back, and when he confirmed this as a fact, a giant smile crossed his face. "I know, it's exactly how I remembered it!"

Percy shot forward and wrapped her in a giant hug, suddenly Bianca didn't feel cold anymore. She held on to him tight, he wasn't the same person she knew but there was something about being in his presence once more that just made her feel like she belonged to this world rather than being just an outsider.

"You look old..." She managed to finally utter those first words underneath the pressure of his pecs against her cheeks.

Percy laughed wholeheartedly and swung her back and forth. He was so tall now that her toes could barely brush against the ground. "I'm sad to say that it happens to the best of us."

He dropped her onto her feet and took a step back. He held her softly by the shoulders but he had to bend his knees in order to meet her eyes. "Black hair, dark eyes, freckles, it's all the same! You're shorter than I remember but thats all right. It's been years, I can't believe it's really y-"

SWOOSH!

"WHAT THE F-!"

A homemade wooden arrow with a sharp stone arrowhead shot into Percy's left shoulder from behind. He stumbled forward but quickly went into a protective stance in front of Bianca using his arm to push her further behind him in case there were anymore arrows. Bianca was angry that someone had just ruined this sweet moment she and him were having.

"Wow, now that looks really bad!" She wanted to help but she didn't know how. She could remove it but she didn't have any medical supplies to treat it. "Are you okay?!"

Percy flinched slightly as he ripped out the arrow without so much as an afterthought about caring for the open wound. "Gods dammit! Someone just _shot_ me!"

Before he could even finish his own sentence or better yet let Bianca even respond to who the aggressor might be, he snatched his book bag from the ground and grabbed her by the thighs, throwing her over his right shoulder like she weighed as much as a pillow. She yelped in surprise as he took off like a lightning bolt into the forest before he would risk getting shot for a second time. She appreciated the fact that he was trying to save her but this was not how she imagined their reunion would end up going.

Bianca lifted her head and she could see Zoë angrily chasing them like a leopard, notching arrow after arrow while Percy zigzagged through the forest faster than even Zoë herself. She clearly must have badly misinterprated the situation. She probably saw Bianca being attacked by some random male intruder and jumped straight into action.

Bianca hoped to never experience the otherside of one of Zoë's hunts. She was gifted when it came down to shooting animals dead with a bow and arrow, so she wasn't too confident that Percy was going to make it out of this confrontation alive.

"Percy, you have to stop! I think your running is only making her angry!" Bianca yelled as she started waving at Zoë to stop trying to shoot him or even worse, shoot Bianca. Zoë must not have noticed Bianca's gesture because arrows were still whizzing from her bow and through the air as she was hopping from tree to tree after them like a female Tarzan.

"Look I know you've been gone for a little while, Bianca." Percy huffed as he jumped over a small river in their path. "But when someone starts shooting, you sure as hell don't stop!"

"Please, Percy! It's not a bad guy! That's Zo-"

Before she finished her sentence, two spherical stones tied together by a rope spun through the trees and wrapped around Percy's ankles making it impossible to take another step. He tripped over a fallen tree and Bianca flew from his grasp. Bianca noticed almost in slow motion, an expression written all over Percy's face, basically it was saying something like: _I told you this chick was trying to kill us._

Percy held out his hand to try to grab her fingers midair but he just barely grazed them before he fell face first into bulging root on the ground and she into a nearby pile of leaves. Bianca wasn't particularly fond of Zoë's momma bear like sense of over protection at the moment.

Bianca poked her head out of the leaves just in time to spot Zoë dropping out of the treetops landing on the ground beside Percy, with one foot on his back and an arrow pointed at the back of his neck ready to be released. "The first arrow was a warning! Trying to kidnap my friend warrants an even deadlier one."

"Don't!" Bianca screamed, scrambling out of the leaves on all fours a couple of yards away. "Stop! It's not what you think!"

Zoë looked up, her brown eyes were wild and her smile proud as if she had just captured an amazing new trophy that she was going to behead and hang on a wall. "This man had his hands all over thee! I will put the vulgar animal to sleep for you!"

Percy groaned through a mouthful of dirt and twigs as Zoë pushed down harder on his back and pressed the arrow point against his skin. "I'm her friend, you crazy-"

Bianca's heart dropped as Zoë released her notched arrow, which into the dirt right beside of Percy. Thank the gods. "Shut thy mouth, you wretched-"

Just before Zoë could notch another arrow, Bianca saw a flash of movement as Percy used the strength in his legs to snap the ropes that entangled his feet and then wrapped his left arm back around Zoë's leg and brought her to the ground and on her butt. It was truly an impressive move, being able to drop her as quick and smoothly as he did. He missed another arrow to the face by half an inch and twisted through the air still holding Zoë's leg in a lock as he laid on top of her with his back over her stomach. Just as he was about to slam his elbow into her face and bust all the teeth out of her mouth, he got a clear look of his attackers face.

"Zoë?!" Percy suddenly smiled like a madman half his face covered in dirt and blood. "Zoë Nightshade! By the gods, I knew I recognized that accent!"

Bianca ran over to the two, who were still on top of one another. Percy was still holding her leg in a lock, Zoë was just laying there on the ground with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. " _Percy Jackson?_ "

"Don't kill her!" Bianca chimed in as she dropped to her butt and tried to catch her ragged breaths.

"Either you're actually alive or I hit my head harder than I thought." Percy released Zoë's leg and rose to his feet holding out his hand to the girl with the slack jawed expression.

"Percy Jackson?" She asked once more as she stared at him like he was the one that just rose from the dead. "You look-"

"Please don't say old." Percy's smile could have charmed the world. "Hearing it twice in one day will make me believe it."

Zoë reached out with her small thin fingers and gingerly took his hand. Bianca was shocked, she had never seen the girl accept help from a man.

"I apologize to thee, I did not-" Zoë stammered over her words. Accepting a man's help and now apologizing to one, this was all very out of character for her. "But you've grown _significantly_ since the last time I saw you."

"Isn't that the truth." Percy laughed as he helped her to her feet, Zoë didn't let go from his grip, she just held on to his hands for a while longer. "If I didn't already know how dangerous you are, I'd find it hard to believe that I ever used to find you intimidating."

"You're bleeding badly. Hold still, I'll take care of it." Bianca shot up and was about to tend to his wounds but he broke away from Zoë's awkward grasp and tore off one sleeve to his t-shirt and began wiping away at the blood.

"No, it's alright." Percy laughed, he didn't even mind the hole in his back that would have probably been excruciatingly painful for a regular person. "It looks like Zoë here hasn't lost her talents. I kept hoping you'd run out of arrows but you never did, I gotta say you dropped me pretty fast. I'm impressed."

The former huntress tucked her chin in and looked at her feet with a smug smile. Was Zoë blushing? Bianca tilted her head with her eyes wide as she noticed this subtle microexpression cross her face. If Bianca didn't know any better she would say that Zoë was showing signs of admiration towards Percy, but that couldn't be. Zoë had been hating men for over two millennia, Percy couldn't possibly be an exception.

"I just hunted thee like any creature of thy gender." Zoë smiled as she continued to look down in a of prideful way. "It would have been a challenge if thee wasn't so slow."

Percy laughed wholeheartedly. His warmth and liveliness was very contagious, his vivacity towards meeting the two girls made him seem like a father having fun with his daughters. He looked like he was in his mid-twenties at this point in his life, twice the physical age of either of them, so it was certainly believable that they could be his children.

"I've missed that unique hatred towards men." Percy hugged Zoë, and the fact that she awkwardly returned the hug instead of snapping both of his elbows inside out, blew Bianca's freaking mind. "The world has truly missed out from all that personality you had to offer."

" _Thank you?_ " Zoë said as she turned as red as a tomato. Hugging a male must have been very hard for her.

 _What the hell is happening?_ Bianca thought to herself as Percy broke away from Zoë and hugged Bianca as well for a second time that day.

Percy pulled away and his smile faded slowly. "How did you two get here? I would have understood Bianca being here, because she's a kid of Hades but you, Zoë, I watched Artemis turn you into a constellation. You should both be…dead."

"We don't know what happened," Bianca replied while fiddling with her fingers. "Zoë and I have only been around for two or three days with not so much as a note to explain anything."

"That doesn't sound too crazy actually. I think I'm in the same boat as you guys, I kind of just woke up out here." Percy scowled as if he was trying to access some hidden memory.

"You seem prepared for the journey." Zoë commented. She was referring to his black book bag that he dropped just before he face planted.

Percy retrieved the book bag, she just noticed a steel axe attached to its front. "I swiped the bag and these clothes off a group of campers a couple miles back. They had a lot more supplies, so I'm sure they didn't mind."

"Please tell me you have a map in there! We've been wandering for days." Bianca shot towards him with a sudden eagerness as he rummaged through the bag.

"Yeaup. I got one right here." Percy pulled out a giant foldable parchment. "I'm taking it that you guys were just as lost as I was?"

"Yes, we were," Zoë muttered as she kicked the dirt. "Unfortunately."

Bianca sympathized her, for some reason Zoë seemed to be off her game when it came to navigating these forests. It must have been a sudden change when she could no longer be the one to get them out of trouble.

"It's still dark in this part of the forest. Come on, we have a fire burning back that way, I'd much rather not run into any monsters right now." Bianca said as she grabbed Zoë by the hand and led them back to the campsite.

They all sat down in front of the fire and Bianca began to explain to Percy what had happened.

"We both woke up in these woods. Zoë arrived a day before I did. But it was the same, we woke up in nothing but these white dresses surrounded by small fires and fallen trees. There wasn't anybody for miles. We found some supplies in this cabin right here but so far we haven't had much luck getting in contact with anyone other than you. How did you find us, anyways?"

"I didn't find you…I think that I died." Percy said looking down at his open palms. "Just like you guys, whatever brought you back must have done the same to me. There's um…these flashes in my mind, I don't remember anything afterwards in regards to the Underworld, but I think that I passed not too long ago."

Bianca noticed that Zoë had been staring at him from across the fire for a solid twenty seconds. "How did it happen?" She asked.

Bianca had been thinking the same thing, from what she seen today, Percy seemed to be a pretty strong demigod. "Was it Gaea?" Bianca asked. "Last I remember she was stirring."

"No." He shook his head and grinned. "I did wake her up a couple years back, accidently. But Gaea was blown to a thousand pieces shortly after you accepted rebirth. I was with my girlfriend, Reyna, when I died..."

"Reyna?" Zoë asked curiously, breaking an arrow in half in the process. "What happened to Annabeth?"

Percy looked down sadly. "Annabeth and I went our separate ways after she accepted godhood from her mother."

" _Godhood_? I didn't even know that was an option." Bianca said incredidly. She couldn't imagine any demigods ever getting the chance to wield the power of the gods. What kind of title could Bianca get that wasn't already taken if she got the opportunity? She would love to be the goddess of cute puppies.

"It is not a gift that is handed out lightly." Zoë replied. "Few mortals are given the opportunity. Dionysus for one started off as a demigod, along with a few others like Ghandi, Houdini, Annabeth or… _Hercules_."

The way she said Hercules' name, it sounded as if she were saying the name like it held some evil power similar to the cursed name, Kronos.

"I met him once, he's kind of a dick." Percy commented. "Not at all like the stories."

Zoë looked up from the ground and smiled slightly at Percy, who seemed to be giving her a look as if the two of them were having some sort of telepathic conversation.

Bianca felt a little left out, did Zoë and him share a secret? Why didn't she know first? They were basically sisters.

"But this Annabeth, that's the chick that threw herself off a cliff back at Westover Hall, right?"

Percy laughed. "It was so long ago but that's the one. Her mother, Athena, made her the immortal Architect of Olympus and her first lieutenant. I was super hyped for her, so we tried to make the relationship work after she took the job, but our relationship couldn't survive the hardships that came with the deal. I mean come on, who falls in love with a goddess and makes it work? It ended pretty badly and the aftermath of it all left us in pretty bad terms. A couple of curses and owl transformations later, she and I haven't spoken in years. Nothing short of a really bad case of amnesia was going to mend that relationship. I was kind of in bad shape, my life was in pieces, but then I met up with an old friend, Reyna. She fixed me up and made life worth living again."

"Reyna Arellano, daughter of Bellona?" Zoë asked. "The Roman demigod?"

"You know her?"

"Many years ago, we offered her and her sister a place in the Hunters of Artemis. They had fought off a band of pirates all by they're lonesome, yet they survived by their wits and skills. She had a ferocity that would have made her a great huntress." Zoë said as she repeatedly stabbed at the earth with a broken arrow.

"She turned out to be an even greater friend. We went through so much together and I couldn't believe how much I lucked out to be with her. Luckily you didn't get through to her before I did." Percy said wistfully. "She still thinks I'm dead. I need to find her."

He stood up, the reflection from the flames reciprocated his determination to get out of this endless forest alive. Bianca knew if she stayed by his side long enough, she would eventually be able to see her little brother Nico. Although, she feared he may not be so little anymore.

"I have been trekking this forest for three days, I will help thee get to where thy needs to be." Zoë said almost instantly as she stood up and looked Bianca. "We will stay together until we make it to somewhere safe."

"You'll be trying to find the Hunters of Artemis, I'm guessing?" He asked.

Bianca nodded but Zoë was notably quiet.

That started to make Bianca think, she had a second chance at life, a second chance to make different decisions. Would she do the same as she did before? Or would she walk a different path? Zoë seemed to be asking herself the same questions.

Percy took note of that as well. "I'll help you get to wherever it is you two want to go, none of you will be dying again on my watch…not again."

He glanced at Bianca, almost looking kind of guilty.

"Percy, that's not a weight that you need to carry on your shoulders." Bianca said. "The chances are pretty high that my father may figure out that the three of us escaped death…there is not much that will stop him from making things right. The dead don't get to just come back without any consequences."

Percy smiled. "I've grown a lot in the past couple of years, Bianca. Your sister came back to life not too long ago and it all worked out in the end. Trust me if it comes down to it, I will bargain with Hades myself."

 _Did he just say sister?_ Bianca thought to herself.

Zoë studied him as if her were some rare specimen. "Hades is an unforgiving god. You cannot bargain with him."

"Then I will fight for you." Percy didn't hesitate to say. "It wouldn't be the first time I knocked a god on his ass."

"Now I know why I used to look up to you so much, all those years ago." Bianca admitted to him with a smile.

"Well let's take advantage of the sunlight while we still have it. Are you guys ready to get the hell out of here?" Percy said.

"We will need food. I set up three snares not too far from here, they should have caught us some rabbits for our travels. I will go gather them, Bianca will gather the rest of our supplies and then we can start the long journey."

She picked up her makeshift bow and made her way towards the treeline but she stopped beside Percy and seemed to choose her words carefully. "Its nice to see thee again."

She smiled and with that, Zoë disappeared into the forest to fetch the snares.

Percy looked confused, he leaned forward and whispered to Bianca. "Wait a minute, did she just call _rabbits_ food? I don't know if she expects us to eat a couple of dead animals, but…I have some beef jerky and Cheetos in my bag…"

"You have actual food?! Thank the gods! She makes me skin my own rabbits and I don't think I can take it anymore." Bianca giggled.

"Don't worry, those days are over." Percy smirked and pulled out the snacks.

He dumped out his supplies and Bianca spotted something that brought back memories.

"Nice rat." Bianca said with a smile as Percy pulled out a plush toy mouse from his bag, maybe a toy for a cat.

Percy looked at the little plastic toy and grinned. "Deja Vu."

She laughed and spotted a nice pair of shoes about her size. Bianca snatched the sneakers up and they fit perfectly. Finally things were starting to look up.

Percy handed her a bag of Cheetos. She wondered if they still tasted the same as she remembered. They did.

"Zoë really handed your ass to you back there." Bianca joked through a mouthful of Cheetos.

Percy dropped his bag of beef jerky and looked at Bianca like she had just ran over his dog. "No she didn't! You totally saw me drop her!"

"All I seen was Zoë standing on top of you with an arrow pointed at your behind. It's okay, Percy, you're not the first man to get beaten up by a girl. Especially _that_ girl." Bianca laughed. "I'd understand if you were scared."

"I really hope your joking." Percy said with a smile and he shoved Bianca playfully, she missed interacting with people. Don't get her wrong now, Zoë was good company but she tended to brood throughout the day almost as if she seemed sad.

"I think she likes you." Bianca finally released that weird thought from her head.

"Yeah, it only took more than a decade for her to realize that having a guy friend isn't so bad." Percy said.

"No." Bianca scoffed and looked around scanning the woods for her friend. She wasn't anywhere to be seen. "I think she _likes_ you, Percy. She has been acting and looking at you really weirdly. Almost like a normal chick with a… _a crush_ "

Percy looked at Bianca with a goofy mouthful of jerky and an expression that said: _Are you high?_ "What are you talking about? She used to be Artemis' handmaidens, plus- _dude_! She's like fourteen!"

"Don't be an idiot. Zoë has been around longer than freakin Jesus! She's older than the both of us, even though she may not look it!"

"That doesn't mean anything, it's still… _weird_."

Bianca laughed and nodded in agreement. "It was totally weird when I thought it up too. Forget I ever mentioned it."

They sat in a comfortable silence until Bianca finally asked. "Percy, I need to ask you a question, before you… died...you wouldn't happen to know if my brother-"

"He's alive, Bianca. Your brother is the toughest there is," Percy put his hand on her shoulder. "The last time I saw Nico, he was..."

He trailed off as if a terrible memory just came to mind.

Percy's eyes glowed blue and he stood tall with his arms spread out and his back arched backwards as if he was just shot by a taser and had a couple hundred volts of electricity coursing through his veins.

"Percy?!" Bianca rushed forward to help him but when she touched him, she flinched back and screamed, his skin was scalding hot like an oven. "Damn it! Percy, can you hear me?!"

Zoë came rushing from the forests and dropped a string of rabbits at her feet. "What's wrong with him?!"

Bianca squeezed her throbbing palm. "I don't know! It just came out of no where!"

Zoë sprinted to Percy and grabbed him by his shirt, lowering him to the ground so that he was facing the sky. Blue waves of energy seemed to be pulsing from beneath his skin. His skin becoming crystal-like as Zoë placed her hands to his cheeks and whispered some incantation into his ears. If he was still burning hot, she didn't seem to notice.

The hairs on Bianca's neck stood straight up. A sharp feeling of power suddenly crept into the air. It felt like the waves of heat seeping off of burning fire against her skin.

Bianca could sense that it was a spirit for sure, but she had never felt a presence this powerful before. It was oozing primordial energy like nothing she'd ever encountered.

She couldn't see it, but the ghost was slowly merging its essence into Percy's body. She witnessed something similar to this in the Underworld by a rogue spirit. A posession was occurring right before her eyes.

"Who's there?" Bianca wanted to scream but the words barely made it past a whisper.

"You're still standing, my little one." A voice boomed through the forest. It wasn't something she was expecting, this spirits voice sounded almost pained and deep like a musician. "But you're scared, why do you stand in the face of fear? Is it bravery? Or is it naivety to the situation that is presented before you?"

Bianca suddenly saw a sort of scepter hovering above Percy's body. If Zoë saw this spirit she was good at hiding it, this figure must have been hiding on the other side of the veil, visible to only Bianca. It seemed to be a being of pure fiery blue waves of energy not even bound to a physical form.

"Get away from him!" Bianca screamed louder than before at the figure, she wanted to punch the damn thing but she didn't think that would end well for her.

"Your eyes can pierce the veil?" He turned and his eyes were miniature suns baring her soul to its depth. "Very few can see me for what I am."

"My father is the Lord of the dead!" Bianca yelled with the little authority that her voice commanded. "I order you to leave Percy Jackson alone or my father will send you packing back to the fields of punishment!"

"I am not easily scared, child." The voice rippled in a calm tone. He seemed almost sympathetic to the situation, like he didn't mean to scare her. "Your father poses no threat to me whatsoever, he couldn't handle my essence even if he tried."

"Who are you? What do you want?!"

"I am Ouranos, child." The spirit boomed. "I am the heavens reborn to this world. I am the creator to many of the beings you worship. I am born of Chaos. I am here to reclaim the heavens but before doing so, I must rebuild myself to what I used to be. I am in need of a host, and this demigod has already been chosen."

"His body is not yours to be leached on!"

"Please, I ask that you do not fight me on this-"

"I don't care!" Bianca's lip was trembling. The spirit of Ouranos sent chills of terror down her spine. "Leave us be or else!"

"Or else what, daughter of Hades? I am interested to see what you bring to the table, my little one."

Zoë was still whispering into Percy's ears, whatever the incantation was, it seemed to slower the process. This frenzy spirit was fighting Zoë, and Bianca could feel its struggle.

"I said get out of here!" Bianca screamed she grabbed her head and felt an enormous tug in her stomach followed by a sharp headache. Waves of power rippled through the air. Was this Bianca's doing?

"No." The spirit of Ouranos muttered in a slightly surprised voice. "I seem to have underestimated your importance, my little one. "

"Just leave!" Bianca screamed, she felt the words she spoke were laced with a surge of power that she didn't even know existed.

"I can't wait to see how this plays out…" And suddenly the spirit disappeared as did his control over Percy.

He gasped and shot up. "Don't let Zeus touch Mr. Snuffles!"

Bianca ran over to him but her knees nearly buckled from exhaustion. It seemed like she was tired enough to sleep for another whole decade.

Zoë was still kneeling next to him with her hands on his cheeks as she examined him for any remaining signs of what had just occured, but he seemed completely normal. "Are you alright?"

Percy looked a little confused as Zoë began shaking his head back and forth like she was throwing around a basketball. "What are you doing?"

"Your body was fighting off an unwanted spiritual entity." Bianca dropped to her knees beside him. The ground was starting to look an awfully lot like a bed.

"Someone one was trying to possess him?" Zoë asked.

"A ghost was trying to _possess_ me?!" Percy looked violated. "Like _The Exorcist_ type of possessing?"

Bianca nodded and yawned loudly. She used up a lot of energy banishing the spirit. "Not just any ghost…it was the spirit of Ouranos."

Percy looked just as confused as she felt.

"Wait a minute…are those Cheetos?" Zoë asked with a look of betrayal as she spotted the bag and the cheese on Bianca's fingers. "I thought we were eating rabbits?"

* * *

Banishing a primordial spirit took a lot out of her. She must have fallen asleep directly after that incident, but one of the downsides of being alive was the fact that she was once again vulnerable to haunting nightmares.

She was standing behind a pair of armored individuals on a hill overlooking a valley of sand. In the center of the valley, maybe two miles out, seemed to be some sort of camp or city bustling with life. It would have been a beautiful view but the sky seemed to be raining down on them with huge plumes of fire ten feet of its impact crater.

"What happened to you?" The man in black with the haunting black skull helm cackled.

A boy not but a couple years older than Bianca was walking forward to meet the other guy, he wore golden armor that was charred black, bent and melted in some places as if he just suffered a beating from a very angry cyclops and was then thrown halfway into an incinerator.

He glared at his partner with those solid gold eyes and spoke with a chilling voice so evil that it sent shivers down her spine. "I fell."

"You fell?" The man in black laughed. "The almighty Titan Lord, _Kronos_ , simply misplaced his footing? It didn't have anything to do with that demigod boy making a fool of you?"

Bianca knew she was sort of invisible in this dream state, but she still had to cover her mouth to stifle a gasp. Even when she was in the Underworld she knew all about the powerful Titan and his endeavors to overthrow the Olympians but he was killed during the battle of Manhattan. Could this really be him?

"You better watch to whom you speak, henchman!" Kronos snarled. "If it weren't for this damned sigil I'd annihilate you and this entire state into a well deserved ash heap!"

He pulled back one of the shoulder straps to his armor and revealed a small symbol that had been branded into his skin just above his collar bone. It was some sort of cross between Ancient Greek and an egyptian heiroglyph. Based on the restraint that the Titan lord was showing, it seemed to be a dampener on his powers.

"Yet you aren't able to." The other guy said followed a sly tsk-tsk. "You are now nothing more than a rabid dog on a very short leash."

Kronos lunged forward with a short bronze scythe that materialized from thin air. The blade was deadly sharp and could have sliced through solid titanium but it stopped an inch from the other guys neck as if someone had grabbed Kronos' arm mid slash. The titan roared in such frustration that earth trembled beneath Bianca's feet.

"Stop embarrassing yourself." The henchman, as she decided to call him, told Kronos. "It's awfully pathetic watching you struggle."

The Titan screamed a curse and took a step back. He threw his scythe to the dirt in anger. "Make use of the time that you have now, henchman. When I am finally released from my fathers bonds, I am going to unleash a thousand years of my wrath upon you and all who ever stood in my way."

"Make a list, Santa Claus. I could care less about your threats. You are only betting this on the chance that Ouranos doesn't kill you after he takes his throne."

"Where is the old man?" Kronos snapped. "He should have directed the armies to this camp by now. We had the advantage of surprise and then he what? Decides to just disappear!"

"I don't know where he is." The henchman admitted. "His host form has put up quite a struggle. It's been causing my lord some great discomfort."

"Percy Jackson." Kronos scoffed. "If your lord were any smarter he would have chosen a host that wouldn't put up a fight. A nice dimwitted demigod would have done just fine as a stepping stone."

"Isn't that what you did?" The other smiled. "Look how well that worked out for you."

Kronos snarled. "He brought the flying fortress crumbling down, he should have been the one to finish the job. The armies should have been directed straight into the heart of the last remaining Roman empire. It was the perfect opportunity!"

"I have to admit, this was the oppurtune moment to strike, but our master will return, he just needs to convince Percy Jackson to return. He has a plan, it won't be long before the demigod boy gives in."

A dragon roared in the distance.

The man in black suddenly snapped his attention towards Bianca. Her heart suddenly felt like someone was squeezing it like a stress ball. He couldn't possibly see her. Could he?

His dark eyes seemed lifeless behind that helm. "Another di Angelo? Very interesting."

Bianca took a step back as the armored man stalked towards her with murderous intent. The dream faded just before he had the chance to wrap his metallic claws around her throat.

She woke up with a start. The flickering light of a lamp post shining through the front window flashed in her eyes. Both seats beside her were empty, Zoë and Percy had disappeared on her. They had pulled over on the side of an empty street just on the edge of a cliff overlooking a large city a couple of miles away. The lights of the city shined bright in the darkness of the night.

Bianca's mind was bursting with questions. How long had she been asleep? When did they get a truck? And where the hell were her friends?

Bianca looked out the back window to where Percy and Zoë were sitting on the flat-bed of the truck. He was sitting on the edge of the open pickup with his legs dangling. Zoë was directly behind him on her knees. If Bianca didn't know any better she'd think that Zoë was giving him a massage. But hell would freeze over long before that ever happened.

They were talking and Bianca decided to be a snoop and eavesdrop on their conversation, anything was better than thinking back on that horrid nightmare.

Percy was shirtless as he allowed Zoë to tend to the spot where she had shot him with that makeshift arrow.

"Being dead didn't affect your shooting, that's for sure." Percy smiled. "You're still an amazing archer."

Zoë lightly wiped the dirt and blood away with a cotton swab, she was smiling from what Bianca could tell. "If I had known it was thee… I probably would have thought _twice_ before shooting."

"How considerate of you." Percy chuckled and flinched as Zoë applied a bit of alcohol to the wound. "Wow, that's cold."

"Sorry." She smiled. "But I'm sure that this wound wasn't nearly as bad as all the others."

She ran her fingers across a couple other old scars that were spread out across his back. A couple of sword puncture wounds and lacerations, along with some burns that had left his skin permanently altered. Bianca's eyes widened at the sight of these battle scars, how could an individual endure so much?

Percy jolted slightly at her touch, he looked almost uncomfortable talking about the old wounds. "Sometimes I wish I never lost the Curse of Achilles, it would have made things so much easier."

"It's called a curse for a reason. You would have suffered far more if you had chosen to keep it, the Styx extracts a great price from you. These battle scars show just how great a warrior you were." There was a slight change in the way Zoë spoke, Bianca noticed that she was trying harder to speak without an accent and more modern.

" _Warrior_. Well look at where I ended up. I lost in the end." Percy said sadly.

Zoë hesitated as she brought out a needle and thread. "Lady Artemis would often speak to me when I was a constellation, she told me the many tales and feats of your adventures to save Olympus. You didn't lose anything, even when the odds were unfairly stacked against you. Percy Jackson always prevailed. She admired you, _almost_ as much as I did."

Percy looked confused. "You could hear people speaking to you?"

Did he seriously not notice that last sentence? Bianca wanted to slap him, Zoë clearly was trying to tell him something but he seemed a little hard headed when it came to that kind of stuff.

Zoë answered yes and began to stitch up his wound. "I heard many voices. Even yours..."

Percy looked slightly embarrased. "I never thought you would be listening, please tell me you forgot."

She smiled. "I'd never forget, Percy. You spoke to me very often, when many others had fallen silent over the years, you continued. It was calming to hear your voice, listening to all the stories you told me…but, I have to ask. Why did you choose to speak to me? For all you knew, I would not have even been able to hear your words."

Percy looked at his open palms. "I um don't know. It always just felt like you could be someone I could talk to. Hell, you hated me the entire time we traveled on our quest, I have no idea why I did it."

Zoë laughed softly. "I didn't hate you."

Percy grinned. "Yes, you did. You made that abundantly clear many times."

Zoë finished her stitching and broke off the thread. "I hated all men equally. You just so happened to fall into that category by mistake."

"Has something changed?" Percy asked as he looked over his shoulder and met her brown eyes. "Are you a _different_ Zoë Nightshade?"

"I shot thee, didn't I? Doesn't that seem like something the old Zoë Nightshade would do?" Zoë smirked mischievously as she slapped a bandage on his freshly stitched wound, he flinched in pain but laughed.

"So I'm guessing that's a solid no?" Percy hopped off the truck and slid his blue shirt back on.

Bianca caught Zoë staring at him. Her eyes seemed longing, it was the same look she had in her eyes all those years ago when they went on the quest to save Artemis.

"I have lived for two thousand long years. One thing I've learned is that people…they do not change." Zoë said, she almost seemed as if she was trying to convince herself of that.

"Yeah, I've heard that a lot and I never did believe it." Percy replied quietly. "You ready to get back on the road?"

Zoë zipped up her first aid kit and nodded. "You have been driving for hours, are you sure you don't want me to drive?"

Percy scoffed. "I've seen you drive before. I am not letting you behind the wheel."

She frowned. "I drive good."

He said sure and held out his hand to Zoë, for a split second she hesitated but then she took it and he helped her down from the truck.

Bianca had totally given up on trying to understand her friend at this point. Zoë was a completely different person when she was around Percy.

He saw her watching from the window and he made his way around the vehicle.

"You're awake." Percy noted with a kind smile as he jumped in the drivers seat. "I figured you would be knocked out for days judging by how much of a heavy sleeper you were."

"I wish." Bianca muttered as the nightmare replayed in the back of her mind.

Zoë slid in the passengers side and put a hand on Bianca's shoulder. "Are you alright?"

"I had a nightmare." Bianca admitted and instantly she felt as vulnerable as a kid. Being squashed together in the three seater vic like the creme in an oreo cookie didn't help her feel any more adultish.

Percy's face darkened. "A demigod nightmare?"

Bianca nodded and went over every detail from the dream. Percy gripped the steering wheel so tight she was so sure that he was going to tear it in half. When she finished, he took a deep breath and stepped out of the vehicle walking slowly to the rear and a little ways down the street until he reached a stop sign.

"What's he doing?" Bianca asked Zoë as she stared from the window.

She could hear Percy yell in frustration as he kicked the red sign with enough force to tear it out of the cement and send it flying off the cliff.

"If I were to take a guess, I'd say he's kind of angry." Zoë remarked, she looked worried, her eyes were full of concern.

Bianca scowled. She could hear Percy suddenly start to shout at the sky and point towards the stars as if he were speaking to someone. That's when she heard him namedrop Zeus in one of his sentences. Thunder boomed in the sky angrily.

"That's not good." Zoë muttered as she exited the car and ran over to him before he was shot down by lightning. Bianca watched as Zoë calmed him down. They spoke for a minute intensely, Percy brushed back his hair and looked sadly down at the floor nodding in agreement. The two then proceeded to walk back to the vehicle.

Percy slid into the drivers seat and simply flipped the ignition. The engine roared to life but they didn't move.

"I have to go to New Rome." He said and then looked at Bianca. "I'm sorry, that I've dragged you guys into this mess. Everywhere I go, trouble follows. I figured bringing you guys home was going to be hard, but this is something else. I didn't mean to put you in any danger. I'll get in contact with Chiron and see if I can arrange some sort of transportation-"

"Stop." Zoë suddenly interrupted with a slightly angered look. "We are not splitting up now."

"Yeah! Were in this together." Bianca agreed.

Percy faltered. "Guys you don't understand the magnitude of what's about to happen. Kronos is back, he's the OG bad guy, and now apparently the primordial god of the heavens is back with him. We just barely survived his wife and trust me that chick was as psychotic as they get! I can't even began to imagine what's going to happen next."

"Should we just jump ship as soon as things get a little rocky?" Bianca asked, she couldn't believe he was thinking about just heading towards this all alone. They were friends, and friends stick together no matter what. "We both knew the day that we woke up, the road forward wasn't going to be easy, this doesn't change a thing."

"We will not abandon thee in times of trouble. We will stick together until the end."

Percy sighed. "I'm driving without a map here. I don't know what's going on anymore and I cannot ask you guys to drive into a warzone with me."

"You don't have to." Bianca gripped his hand reassuringly. "Just like Zoë said, we stay together."

He only looked forward lost in his thoughts.

"As long as you guys are with me, I'll keep my promise. I won't let any harm come to you." Percy said without a fault as he looked into each of their eyes.

Bianca couldn't help but think that the promise was a little too hopeful, but he made it seem as if he was absolutely certain that they would live through this. She turned and looked at her friend, she never seen Zoë look so content with charging into a minefield before.

With that the three of them drove off into the darkness.

Bianca couldn't help but think back to the dream and how that man spoke her name. _Another di Angelo._

What did that mean?

For one, her brother must have came across this man just as she did. She only hoped that he made it out of the encounter alive just as she did.


	9. Chapter 9

**ZOË**

The very moment that Percy corrected her form, all those feelings of bitterness towards his gender came rushing back like a freight train.

Who did he think he was, trying to teach her how to hold a bow and arrow? The very tool that she had mastered two thousand years ago! She had been around long enough to critique Hercules on his posture! She could hit a bull's eye with her hands tied behind her back for Artemis' sake! And here he was telling her that her hand was half an inch too high up?!

Albeit he may have said it as a joke, she certainly did not receive it that way.

"Well, I am older." Was his only response followed by a smirk.

She didn't remember the insults she spat back at him, all she knew is that everybody in the department store had stopped what they were doing and gasped in shock at the colorful language that she had picked up over her two thousand years of life.

"I thought your form was alright." Bianca muttered as she followed closely behind as Zoë stomped angrily through the labyrinth of a store without an ounce of remorse to any innocent shopper that got in her way.

" _Alright_?!" Zoë gasped and spun around only to find that Bianca nosedived behind a rack of clothes with her eyes slightly peeking above the buy thirty get one free sign.

"Perfect!" Bianca chuckled nervously. "I meant to say _perfect_ of course!"

Zoë muttered angrily to herself and ventured on through the store, not even looking for anything in particular. She just needed to clear her storming mind for a minute. For a moment there, Zoë had convinced herself that maybe, _just maybe,_ she liked Percy Jackson. He seemed different from the last time they saw each other, his attitude, his looks, his personality, it all had become a morphed godly version of the hero he used to be. He had matured a lot and for some very strange reason she felt attracted to him, something fluttered in her chest when they interacted. Not in a romantic way of course, instead she felt somewhat pulled towards him like a tide to the moon. She was _clearly_ very mistaken and out of her mind. The resurrection must have fried her brain like a bag of popcorn in a microwave.

Percy jumped out from behind a clothes shelf and stopped right in her warpath with a huge apologetic grin planted on his face. "Come on, I'm sorry, Zoë! I really didn't mean to insult you! I apologize, honest to the gods."

When she saw him, she felt the need to forgive him and ask for a hug like the one he gave her when they first discovered they had both returned from the dead.

No! She told herself. _He insulted thee! Beat him to death with the bow and show him how a proper archer handles her weapon! Make Lady Artemis proud! Hugs afterwards._

Her mind was awfully conflicted. Zoë tried to find a response to his words but all that escaped her mouth was an unintelligible growl. She unslung the fancy new bow that she had been eyeballing earlier and tossed it to Percy. "Pay for it."

Percy chuckled as she stalked towards the exit. "Aren't you going to find some new clothes? Or do you like walking around with no shoes?"

 _Damn it._ She thought to herself, that was the reason they had stopped at this godforsaken store in the middle of nowhere. She spun around and her baggy quadruple XL clothes twirled with her like a dress. She stomped off to find herself some clothes and shoes. Bianca was there by her side the entire time, trying to hide a sly grin. "You're really short fused aren't you?"

She didn't answer her, instead she plucked her friend on the nose. When they finally left the store, Zoë left wearing a silver button down blouse, black jeans, and gray combat boots with an all silver bow slung over her back. All paid for courtesy of Percy Jackson and the wads of cash he stole unintentionally from a group of unsuspecting campers. Bianca had picked out the exact same wardrobe, when Zoë asked her why, she replied that it was just a coincidence but the huge smile and big brown eyes always studying her every move said otherwise. Standing at approximately four inches shorter than Zoë, Bianca looked like her mini-me, she even wore the same high tied ponytail. The only difference between the two were their choice in weapons, Bianca had bought a six inch dagger rather than a bow.

Zoë figured that her companion had grown increasingly attached to her over the past couple of days but she couldn't figure out why. When they got to their gray pick-up, Zoë caught a glimpse of herself in the window reflection and for the first time since she had accepted a role in the Hunters of Artemis, she had grown up. Her face looked like she aged four years in just the span of one day, it was almost as if her body was suddenly adjusting to the fact that she could age again. Earlier that morning they had fallen asleep at a rest area just along the side of a highway, when Percy woke up he nearly freaked out when he saw her. Apparently he noticed that she had aged sporadically as well. She looked like a grown woman, he said. Zoë didn't know whether to drop kick him in the face or thank him when he looked at her like that.

"We still have a couple hours before we reach San Francisco." Percy informed them as they drove down the straight road in this barren desert somewhere in California. The trees had disappeared leaving only the constraining view of sand and mountain ridges in the distance.

" _Only_ a couple hours?" Zoë muttered, he was sitting directly next to her with their shoulders touching, it had been exactly twenty three minutes. The longest amount of time that she had been in contact with a male for as long as she could remember. "We'd arrive much faster if I was driving."

Bianca had insisted that she wanted the window seat, thus leaving Zoë the all too small middle seat scrunched up in between her two companions with barely any space for her to move. Funny enough, Bianca had so much space on her side to scoot over but she kept insisting that she was already too squished.

Zoë was starting to suspect that Bianca was pushing her closer to Percy by the second leaving Zoë red in embarrassment, meanwhile her friend just stared out the passenger window smiling mischievously.

"I tried letting you drive already, Zoë." Percy responded. "But I'd honestly prefer to not die for a second time and I'm pretty sure Bianca feels the same way."

 _Does she now?_ Zoë slowly turned towards her friend for a look of confirmation, but she was shaking her head in response to his comment.

"Stop scaring her." Percy shoved Zoë softly.

"I am not." Zoë replied with a smile and shoved Bianca closer to the window, giving her a little more wiggle room. " _Sorry_. Speed bump."

"Liar." Bianca rubbed her shoulder.

"You guys have your seatbelts on?" Percy asked as he looked into the rear view mirror. "Someone's coming up real fast now. Look at this psycho driving like another Zoë ."

Zoë nearly grabbed a hold of Bianca's dagger and cut out Percy's tongue but the sound of a huge black Cadillac with dark tinted windows roared right past their smaller pickup and sped down the road like it had just broken the sound barrier. The SUV made it just a couple hundred feet down the road and skidded to a halt and positioned itself in the center of the narrow street blocking off both lanes.

"That doesn't look good." Bianca gulped. "Should we ram it?"

"In this piece of junk?" Zoë asked as she began screwing on the steel arrow tips to their shafts, if there was going to be a tussle, she needed to be ready for it. It had been a while since she had a real challenge. "We would barely budge them and I doubt we would get anywhere in a high speed pursuit. No, we have to stop."

"Let's hope they're friendly. Cause we are fresh out of celestial bronze." Percy muttered. "How comfortable are you with your powers, Bianca?"

She sank in her seat. "I've seen what Nico was capable a couple years back…I never even had the chance to learn what he knew, considering I was…you know. _Dead_."

"Well, nothing beats learning on the job." He came to a soft stop a couple yards away from the suspicious SUV.

"I don't like this, maybe we should just go into reverse?" Bianca suggested.

 _Too late._ Percy and Zoë's curiosity got the best of them. The drivers door opened and the reckless driver came into view.

"No freaking way." Percy hopped out of the vehicle in excitement.

Zoë caught a glimpse of the black haired female just as she exited the vehicle. She was a little shorter than Zoë and dressed in a black leather jacket that dangled with silver chains and on her short cropped hair she wore a…a silver tiara. Zoë 's tiara. A symbol of Artemis' immortal lieutenant.

"Thalia?" Zoë murmured. "That can't possibly be her."

It was her without a doubt, Zoë could recognize that piercing stare from a mile away. Although her eyes weren't their signature electric blue, instead they were replaced by a pair of silver irises. Those eyes went from a permanent state of angry to _what the hell is going on_ real quick as Percy engulfed Thalia in a bear hug and shook her like he was trying to shake the lightning out of her.

"He sure likes to hug people." Bianca noted. "That's his hundredth one in the past twenty-four hours."

It only took a second to realize that Thalia did not feel the same way. The girl wrapped her arms around Percy's, locking him close in place, and headbutted him so hard the impact could be heard from inside their truck. The son of Poseidon was so taken back by the turn of events that he was actually taken off guard and did a little twirl before he crumbled to the ground. Maybe he was expecting his cousin to be a little more excited to see her newly resurrected family again. Thalia couldn't have looked anymore pleased by the sight of him on the floor.

"It seems like she's finally joined the right side." Zoë laughed. "But we should probably go make sure he's okay."

Bianca hopped out of the car and ran to Percy's side. She cradled his head in her laps and slapped him softly in the face. He muttered something about pretty birdies but other than that he seemed alright.

"You hit him harder than necessary, Thalia." Zoë commented as she stood over him with her hand covering her large smile.

Thalia nearly broke out into a run at the sight of her. An unusual comforting smile crossed the daughter of Zeus' face. "Zoë Nightshade?"

"Don't tell me thy is going to hug me too, I've seen what happens." Zoë smirked at the thought of the idea.

"It is true," Thalia whispered. "When I looked into the skies and saw your constellation missing…I did not know what to think."

Zoë furrowed her eyebrows, those were familiar eyes. They looked out of place on Thalia. They seemed like they had seen it all. "Lady Artemis?"

The goddess inhabiting Thalia's body smiled. "I heard your prayers and had to be sure. I thought you would only be subjected to be a memory in my mind every moment after you passed."

Zoë fell to one knee and bowed at Thalia's black leather punk boots. "Lady Artemis, I'm honored you have come. We have been lost for gods know how long."

Artemis grabbed Zoë by her hands, pulled her up to her feet and hugged her. "The world hasn't changed so much, my huntress. I'm sure you would have found your way even if I hadn't came along."

"I had the company of friends." Zoë broke away and nodded to her two companions.

"Lady Artemis." Bianca looked just as surprised as she dropped Percy on the asphalt and knelt.

"Bianca di Angelo. Forgive me, I wish that I had been there for you in your time of need." Artemis pulled her to her feet as well while clasping her hands.

"Elysium wasn't too bad. It's alright, I'm here now. So I guess it kinda worked out in the end, my lady." Bianca blushed.

" _My lady?_ " Percy Jackson groaned as he rolled over on the concrete. "Artemis? Is that you? By the gods this is weird…"

"Percy Jackson." Thalia's face scrunched together in amusement. "I guess I was wrong to assume that a hero such as yourself could have been held down by death. You have out done yourself once more. You are a _very_ interesting man."

"Well leaving behind my girlfriend didn't sit too well with me." Percy muttered as he rose to his feet and held his head. "On another _kinda_ important note, is Thalia still alive in there or…?"

Artemis' eyes flashed blue and her body flickered with sparks of electricity. "Thalia is alive and well. I asked for permission to take her body for a spin. With the ongoing conflict I needed a means of travel through the mortal world that wouldn't catch too much attention from my godly peers."

Percy rubbed his head. "Conflict? What happened?"

Artemis frowned and tossed Percy Jackson the keys to her Cadillac. "We have a lot to discuss. In the meantime you're driving."

* * *

Zoë was hurt that she didn't get to sit the front seat with the punk dressed goddess but she didn't dare let her emotions show.

"Are you pouting?" Bianca asked her.

Zoë furrowed her eyebrows, dammit her steel bearings had weakened. " _No_. I don't pout..."

"So Artemis, this isn't incredibly strange-but ahem what was going on, you said something about a conflict?" Percy asked, his eyes switching between the road ahead and Thalia next to him. He was probably still weirded out as Zoë was. She wondered what Thalia was doing inside that head.

"Because of you, your father has declared war against my father."

Percy nearly swerved into a ditch. "Wait—whoa, whoa, _what?!_ What do you mean because of me? I was _dead_ , do you know what it's like to be dead? Well neither do I because I can't remember, but the point is I don't have control of things when I'm dead! What do I have to do with some war between those two overly powered knuckleheads?!"

Bianca peaked her head forward in between the two seats and grabbed their attention with a false cough. "Um can you keep your eyes on the road, Percy. I don't want to die again, please and thank you."

Artemis turned back to Percy. "Poseidon is under the impression that my father is the reason you were killed. There was a confrontation in the throne room that leveled a better part of Olympus and if what happened in there has any validity to it, my father released the beasts that took you attacked you and your _friend_ two months ago."

Zoë watched a grim expression cross his face. "Well in that case it's not much of mystery is it? If my dad believed that Zeu-"

Artemis' palm shot forward and covered his mouth. "Don't say his name. I am incognito for the time being, if he were to notice my presence here on Earth he would yank me right back to Olympus and probably blast the three of you to kingdom come. We will use codenames, you-know-who shall henceforth be known as… _codename daddy_."

Bianca burst into laughter that she tried to contain with very little success. Zoë scolded her and plucked her in the face.

Percy looked at Artemis like she was crazy. "First of all, I am not going to call him that! Second of all, if Thunder For Brains is really the one sent those creeps after me and after Reyna!…Then maybe my father should be the one to drag him off that high throne of his."

Percy looked deadly serious, Zoë had never seen such a look in his eyes. "Percy, thy father is the Earthshaker. His wrath has been unleashed upon mortals before and it hasn't ever end _pretty_. If he were to unleash his full power in a fight against Zeus, there is no measuring how much damage will be caused by his hands."

Percy scoffed and slammed his right palm on the steering wheel. "Poseidon wouldn't do all this without knowing that… _he_ did this. Reyna almost died that night!"

"And now she sits safely in the comfort of Camp Jupiter." Artemis countered. "Her wounds have healed and she is in the company of her friends and family. No danger will come to her in the city."

"I need to see her again." Percy sighed.

"She is safe, Percy. But Poseidon on the other hand has stopped listening in on the mortal realm, he doesn't even know that you're alive. If you were to go to him now it is very possible that you can end this war before it begins."

"It's not that simple, Artemis. The three of us have to get to San Francisco to deal with other matters."

"You'd leave the world at the mercy of our fathers and their war?" Artemis asked. "When you had been accused of stealing the master bolt all those years ago, it nearly ignited a costly war. This is the same situation, except _you_ are your father's master bolt. Your life was taken from Poseidon and it was never given back. He feels that he has been greatly disrespected."

Percy stammered over his words but remained quiet.

"My lady, Kronos has returned." Zoë was wary to say the name, she half expected that the Titan would come crawling from the shadows and attack them. "He is the reason we have traveled this far. The titan launched an attack against Camp Jupiter just yesterday."

Artemis sighed. "I am well aware of my grandfathers return. The Olympians have taken note as well, but my father's bitterness with Poseidon has blinded him to the point of carelessness. This matter has to be dealt with immediately, Kronos will have to wait for tomorrow."

"It's not only him." Bianca said quietly as she fumbled with a tiny animals skull. Where it came from, Zoë had no idea. "Ouranos has returned with him, just like we did."

Artemis twisted in her seat to face Bianca. "What did you say?"

"The primordial god of the heavens… _Ouranos_ is back." Bianca replied.

She turned to Zoë for confirmation. "Is this true?"

Zoë nodded.

"I saw him myself." Bianca said. "He said that the reason he is here was to retake his control over the heavens. But first he needed a host, he needed someone that could allow him to rebuild until he was strong enough to assume his true form, that someone was Percy."

Artemis turned to Percy and studied him with cautious eyes. "The implications of his return are grave, why aren't you under his control right now?"

"Bianca banished his spirit." Zoë said. "It's only a matter of time before he comes back to claim Percy's body."

"You had the strength to banish the spirit of Ouranos?" Artemis nodded in approval. "I will call an emergency counsel to inform the other Olympians, in the meantime, the three of you must travel to Atlantis."

She turned back to Percy. "You must convince your father to end this bitter rivalry today, but be wary of Ouranos, we may not know when he may come back and try to regain control. Pull over here."

* * *

"Um, Lady Artemis, I've been to Atlantis before…this is not it." Percy commented as the four of them stood on the edge of a motel pool that was filled with green murky water that barely reached the two feet mark.

"You think I didn't notice that?" She shot back and for a moment, Zoë forgot that Artemis was inhabiting Thalia's body. "I will open a passage between here and your father's domain but you will need to hurry. Once codename Daddy, senses my magic here on Earth he will probably assume that I have taken Poseidon's side in this war. I will be forced back to Olympus and you three will be marked as traitors. More than likely you may be subjected to his wrath if you are still to remain here."

"Sounds fun." Bianca grumbled.

"Once all is settled." Artemis said it as if she was sure. "I will want to know whether the two of you choose to rejoin the hunt. You do not need to if you choose against it. Your pledge died with you years ago, but I would gladly welcome you with open arms."

Her eyes studied Zoë and Percy closely. Artemis pointed the palm of her left hand to the pool and the waters churned with golden rays of godly power. The depth began to rise and the liquid changed colors, suddenly the water was deep blue and Zoë got a whiff of a subtle sea breeze.

"I can't swim." Bianca muttered.

Thunder and lightning rocked the skies as storm clouds brewed heavily. Zeus had taken notice of their presence.

"It's time to go, you have to jump!" Artemis told them.

Percy held out his hand to Bianca. "Come on, I won't let you drown."

Bianca took his hand and the two hopped into the pool disappearing completely.

Zoë turned to Artemis. "Will you be alright, my lady?"

She smiled. "You know more than most that I can take a scolding from my father. He's alway had a soft spot for me. But before I go, I do have to say, you seem different, older for sure. I'd understand if you chose to remain a mortal and seek…a _different_ lifestyle, if that's what you truly want. I will be waiting for your answer when you get back. Take care, Zoë ."

Zoë was going to respond, she didn't know what stopped her. Was it that she didn't know the answer herself or was it the bolt of lightning shot from the sky and struck Thalia's body from behind?

The explosion knocked Zoë off her feet, but she caught a brief glimpse of the same bolt of lightning retracting back into the heavens pulling back a ghost like image of an auburn haired twelve year old girl. Zoë figured Thalia would be alright considering the fact that she was Zeus' daughter but she couldn't help feel sorry for her mistress. Zeus' wrath could means all sorts of things. If he was truly in a bad mood, Artemis would probably be appointed the new Director at Camp Half-Blood.

As Zoë sank into the surprisingly deep pool she thought back to Artemis' words. _A different lifestyle._ She must have known that Zoë was having troubles with the way she felt. But then it dawned on her, here she was sinking in what she assumed was the ocean…and she was running out of oxygen.

Zoë tried paddling back to the surface but something was forcing her down. She thrashed violently as the waters got darker the lower she got. Was this really how she was going to die for the second time?

"Don't worry I'm here for you, Zoë ." Someone whispered beside her.

A soft hand grabbed her fingertips and suddenly she was engulfed in a giant air bubble with the other person, soaking wet she fell forward and hugged Percy firmly as she struggled to stand.

"Hey, it's alright." Percy said as he held on to her tightly, his grasp didn't fail her. "I wasn't going to let you drown."

Zoë looked up and she saw his smile, for a moment as she stood there slipping on the greasy bubbles surface, she didn't feel like letting go.

"Are you good?" Percy tapped on her back and looked down into her eyes.

Zoë muttered something that she couldn't remember but she was pretty sure it was something weird along the lines of, "Like a hot pocket."

Percy laughed wholeheartedly. "What?"

Zoë suddenly cleared her mind and pushed away. "Erm Nothing. Where's Bianca?"

She leaned against the bubbles surface with her hands and tried to look into the dark deep waters. There was nothing but dark green as far as her mortal eyes could see.

"She's right there." Percy said pointing somewhere in the darkness. Zoë scowled, he was point at nothing.

"I don't have thy eyes underneath these waters." Zoë responded. "I can't see anything."

Percy said, oh, and poked his hand outside of the bubble and yanked a soaking wet Bianca into their large hamster ball.

"Holy Hades!" Bianca screamed as she struggled to her feet but slipped back on her butt. "That was cold!"

"Sorry." Percy grinned and held up his hands.

The water from their clothes and body suddenly crawled upwards and floated into the air and snaked around the tips of his index fingers until they were completely dry. He whipped his hands outwards and the water shot outside of the bubble.

"Artemis really worked some magic." Percy said in awe. "We're almost there. I can see Atlantis from here."

"I can't see anything." Zoë remarked.

"Hold on, let me try something that I was working on a long time ago." Percy held out his fingertips and placed them on the girls foreheads. "It's a little complicated to explain but here it goes."

He closed his eyes in concentration and she felt like someone had splashed water into her eyes. Suddenly the entire bubble glowed with beautiful rays of multicolored lights. Zoë 's vision suddenly began to make out shapes in the distance, her eyes were adjusting to the depths of the ocean. Whatever Percy was doing worked.

She gasped as she took in her surroundings. The bubble was most definitely sinking to the ocean floor. She could see Atlantis just as Percy did. It was beautiful.

She had never visited Olympus but she always pictured this like it, except this was the Little Mermaid version. It was a large underwater city with wide courtyards, gardens, and columned pavilions. The gardens were sculpted with coral colonies and glowing sea plants. Twenty or thirty buildings were made of abalone, white but gleaming with rainbow colors. Groups of colorful fish and whales swam by directly in front of them without so much as a sideway glance.

"This looks unbelievable." Bianca gasped and leaned against the bubble like she was a kid visiting an aquarium. "I wish my dad was Poseidon."

She suddenly groaned and took a step back. "Oh! My dad's really going to send me to the Fields of Punishment for saying that!"

Percy smiled comfortingly and wrapped his arms around Bianca's shoulders. "Not while you're here, he's not."

Zoë admired Percy's protectiveness. She had witnessed all types of mortal men in her life, then it dawned on her that we wasn't like anybody that she had ever met. He wasn't just an ordinary hero. His heart wasn't pure, he was just as troubled as any other human being but he made the best out of the situation he was given.

Bianca smiled in awe as she pointed out all the different beasts that lurked in the ocean depths. Krakens larger then any building man could possibly create lulled in the distance. Percy told her the story of how Poseidon had been at war with the ancient titans of the deep and how this place had been under construction ever since. He told her how his father and his brother fought against the giant monster king, Typhon, and chained him somewhere here in the ocean. Bianca smiled and marveled at the tales like these were the greatest stories ever told, but it was his words that made them seem like heroic feats.

"That's my father's throne room." Percy pointed to a circular building that sat on a glowing rock in the dead center of all the other buildings. "I've been here a couple times and he's almost always there. He has a second throne there, it's where a big portion of his powers originate from. Not as much as his throne on Olympus but still it's pretty awesome. You'll get to meet him, he's not like the other gods, he's something else really."

Percy's eyes saddened. Zoë noticed but she thought it best not to press on why.

"Percy, I don't think we're supposed to be here." Zoë pointed out.

He willed the bubble to shoot forward to the palace in the distance. Mermen and floating women on the seafloor below them looked up and pointed to them from the distance. Zoë began to question what would happen when they got to Poseidon's palace. Bianca and Zoë were intruders in this kingdom, would they be killed on sight? If Poseidon was as moody as the stories made him out to be, she was mentally preparing herself to be turned into a goldfish.

"No, I'm sure we'll be alright." He said nonchalantly.

Bianca's eyes got wide as she saw what Zoë saw. Squads of armed mermen began to flank them as they reached the large open deck palace. They did not seem happy. A total of fifteen of the fish-tailed blue men surrounded them and they lowered their spears with a loud CHINK!

One of the armored soldiers broke through the ranks and bared his large shark like teeth. "Halt! You have illegally trespassed into the Kingdom of Atlantis. Show us your international sea approved passports!"

Percy patted down his pockets and feigned a look of confusion. "You know what? I think I left it in my desk just over there, hold on let me get it for you guys."

He jumped out of the bubble and propelled himself forward like he was an underwater Superman. Two mermen suddenly whipped their bronze spears around and pointed it at Percy's throat, stopping him in his tracks.

"This is no game, mortal!" The officer roared. "We are preparing for war and if you do not state your business, the three of you will be executed in the name of Lord Neptune, God of the Seven Seas and King of Atlantis!"

Percy held up his hands. "Hey, I'm sorry to interrupt, we don't mean to cause any trouble. My name is Percy Jackson and these are my friends, I'm here to speak to my father."

The mermen shifted uncomfortably but the leader didn't look convinced. "Percy Jackson? Impossible, the demigod boy is dead!"

"Bring us to Poseidon. He'll prove it." He replied back. "Take us prisoners if it'll make you feel safe, like I said we don't mean any trouble."

The officer grunted and barked orders at the other mermen. He escorted Percy and them into the building with spears at the ready. Zoë figured if those sharp points popped their bubble, the pressure this far down would crush their bodies like they were aluminum cans.

As they entered the palace, the squad of mermen broke off in two and filed around the circular room. The lead merman halted at the entrance and stopped the three from going any further. It seemed that they were interrupting some sort of judicial sentencing.

In the center of the room a scrawny old man floating with his head held down in shame. Directly ahead on the other side of the room, a seven foot tall bulky man around thirty years of age sat on a purple coral textured throne. His golden trident glowed with power. By his side, a beautiful black haired woman floated with a beautiful purple flowing dress.

Poseidon looked different than any version of the god she had pictured in her head, he and Percy shared very little in the characteristics department. For one this man had wavy brown hair that was closely shaved along the sides and a bushy beard with dark green eyes.

"You have done me a great service by bringing me this intel, I understand that you have had your doubts about switching allegiances but I assure you…this war will be very one sided." He spoke.

He slammed the butt of his trident on the marble flooring and dismissed the old man. This white haired frail man seemed oddly familiar as he scurried out of the room but Zoë just could not place her finger on who it was.

"Dad?" Percy asked as he pushed past the lead merman.

The man sitting on the throne wore armor unlike anything greek or Roman, it seemed almost like it was made of the scales of some golden reptilian beast.

"Percy Jackson?" The god spoke as he stood in shock.

"Impossible, he is dead. This is obviously an imposter! Kill him for me, my love." The woman beside him said in disdain, even if she knew that this was Percy, Zoë got the feeling she'd say about the same thing.

"You're not Poseidon." Percy muttered, ignoring the gods wife altogether. "You're Neptune."

The god of the sea grunted in approval as if he seemed content with being recognized. Suddenly his form flickered and he morphed into an entirely different person. The man that walked out of the golden light, was tan skinned with black hair and bright green eyes. His armor was less fish skinned and made of celestial bronze, the only thing that remained was his golden trident humming with power.

"Son." Poseidon rushed forward and wrapped his arms around Percy, he boomed in proud laughter. "At last! My greatest pride has returned from the grasp of death! I should have disregarded Hades, when he announced your demise!"

"Yeah, turns out I don't do well being dead." Percy smiled but his eyes remained sad.

"This is a cause for celebration!" Poseidon boomed as he turned to his wife. "Amphitrite, my dear, give Dionysus a call! Tell him to bring all the spirits he has to offer! Arrange that we have everything set up in the main courtyard. Tonight we party!"

His wife scoffed in disgust and swam away.

Percy looked a tad uncomfortable. "Dad, I appreciate the celebration, but I don't think we'll have time to party any time soon."

"Nonsense." Poseidon said with a smile. "If there was any perfect time, it is now! Who are these two?"

Zoë and Bianca had finally fallen under the gaze of the excited sea god.

"These are my friends, Zoë Nightshade and Bianca di Angelo." Percy introduced them.

"Any friends of my son are welcome here." Poseidon waved his hand and their bubble popped.

Zoë assumed that the second the protective layer bursted she would either implode under the weight of the sea or drown to death. Surprisingly enough neither of those things happened, when ever she took a breath it was as if she were breathing regularly even Bianca seemed surprised.

"It's an honor to meet you, Lord Poseidon." Zoë bowed and Bianca followed her lead.

Poseidon nodded and turned back to Percy. He set one hand on his shoulder. "Now! Who else shall we invite to the party of the century!"

"Is it true? Are you going to war because of me?" Percy said suddenly, Poseidon's expression shifted.

"So you've heard." He said. "Unfortunately it is true."

"Why would you do this? No good ever comes out of war. It's only death and collateral." Percy suddenly shifted to a slightly angered tone. Zoë wasn't an expert on their father-son relationship but she was sure if anybody started arguing with a god or goddess they would be blasted off the face of the Earth, no matter their family history.

Poseidon didn't seem at all bothered by his son's tone. "My brother has disrespected me for the last time, son. Zeus has greedily extended the reach of his power too far. He is the god who orchestrated the events that led to your demise two months ago."

"He sent those demons after me, that guy with the skull mask." Percy looked down he seemed to recall the moment of his death.

Poseidon nodded. "Zeus heard news of a prophecy that foretold the rising of our grandfather-"

"Ouranos."

"He had acted impulsively and made the choice to take matters into his own hands without a ruling from the council." Repeating it only made Poseidon angrier.

"It didn't make a difference! Ouranos is alive and has come back fighting." Percy said. "He's the reason, I'm alive. He's the one that brought me back to life. You have to stop this war right now, dad. The Olympians need to be united on this forefront otherwise Kronos and Ouranos are going to tear everything down! They cannot do this without you, they need the great god of the sea on their side!"

Poseidon seemed touched by his son's words but his stance did not change. "I cannot. This started with your death son, it was an unforgivable deed. I'm glad to have you back and I will avenge your honor. But now this is about respect. _Respect_ I will have. I am going to dethrone Zeus and have him punished accordingly. Maybe I'll make him mortal once he secedes from the war. I'll have him be Kim Kardashian's personal butler until I feel like he has learned his lesson, then we will take on the threat of whoever tries to harm us."

"As much as I want you to be king, you'd be far better at it in my opinion, I can't help but think that this isn't you. You should not go to war."

Poseidon smiled. "This is me son! This can be the both of us! I can do whatever now that I am free of the Zeus laws!

"Wait what do you mean?" Percy looked confused.

"Those bound to Olympus and its fate were always bound to the ancient laws. But now that I have separated myself from them…I can do whatever I want now that I am free of the council. I could even make you a god at this very moment. Just think about it! You could live out eternity right here by my side! You would be my lieutenant, free of all the pain of a mortal life. You won't have to die again! Just say the word, Perseus!"

Being a standerby hurt. There was a tugging in Zoë's heart, something inside was making her feel empty. Would Percy accept his father's offer?

She had never seen a smile so big on his face, he looked so happy. Zoë imagined that he had waited his entire life for this moment, the moment where his father would ask him to be a permanent part in his eternal life. This was an extremely rare event, the look on Percy's face must have been the same exact way Annabeth felt when her mother offered her the same gift. Even Zoë understood the feeling, she felt so accepted when Artemis made her a part of the hunt. This offer was irresistible.

Percy turned to meet his friends eyes, this entire time Zoë thought that he forget they even existed, but she was wrong. Zoë knew what he was thinking. He made the decision that any sane mortal would make. Percy Jackson was going to accept godhood.

"Dad," Percy looked like he was going to burst. "You don't know how you saying all this makes me feel. Honest to the gods, I couldn't be any happier…but I can't accept your offer."

BOOM!

Cue the fireworks in Zoë 's chest! She was absolutely shell shocked by Percy's words. Had he gotten knocked around so much over the years that his brain could no longer understand a tasty offer when it was presented?

Poseidon roared. Not in anger but in laughter. "Aha! There it is! You are perhaps the most indistinguishable being that I have ever met! I can't say that I'm surprised, son."

He hugged Percy and patted him on the back.

"I don't want you think I'm being rude or anything its just that—"

"It's about her isn't it? Reyna. And your friends. you don't have to explain a thing, son. There is great honor in the things that you do, the burdens you take upon yourself. No other would be able to bear the achievements that you wear."

"Thanks, dad." Percy looked genuinely happy but the sadness in his eyes remained.

"If you won't accept immortality, let me give you a gift, son." In Poseidon's palm laid a simple green hermits shell. "It is a gift like no other in this world, I can swear upon the River Styx for that. I will not reveal what it is, but the day that you feel like you are ready to accept it, break the shell and it shall be revealed. When you feel the pain is too much, when you can no longer keep going, or if you are looking for a reason _to keep going_ , when death is calling your name once more. The choice to accept is yours, my son. It also makes a good looking necklace."

The shell grew small in his hand, until it was the size of a quarter attached to a small golden chain. He gave it to Percy and he simply stare at the mysterious gift in his hand.

He hooked the necklace around his neck and fiddled with the shell. "I really appreciate it, thank you. But about this whole war thing…"

Poseidon placed his hand on his son's shoulders. "How about we discuss this tomorrow? Unfortunately as king here in Atlantis I must be pulled away for other political matters. You and your allies can spend the night here, enjoy all that Atlantis has to offer. Then tomorrow you and I can talk over the details, that I promise son."

"Sure, Dad." Percy smiled.

* * *

Much to Bianca's disappointment, Percy didn't feel like seeing Atlantis today. The Atlanteans had set them each up with their own private quarters in Poseidon's personal castle at his orders. They were small one bedroom spaces that were empty other than the green torches on the walls and the diamond chandeliers hanging over their mattresses. Zoë wondered if they believed in television down here in the ocean, if not they were sorely missing out. As much as Bianca begged Percy to take them for a tour through the city, he wasn't feeling up to it. He had a sad look on his face as he shut the door to his room behind him.

Zoë couldn't stand to be alone so she roomed up with Bianca and sat on her bed wondering about what bothered Percy.

"One of the mermen said they don't serve sushi here." Bianca closed the door shut behind her and jumped on her bed. "That sucks, I was kinda in the mood for some."

"What do you thinks wrong with Percy?" Zoë asked changing the subject from cannibalism to her new male friend.

"I think he's upset with himself." Bianca laid out like a starfish on her bed but she couldn't seem to stop floating to the ceiling. "He could have been a god. Can you imagine that? Perseus Jackson, the greek god of good looking heroes."

"Good looking heroes?" Zoë nearly burst into laughter but she settled for an amused grin.

"I've seen the way look at him." Bianca paddled her way through one window and back in through the other. "Is it possible that Zoë Nightshade has developed feelings for a man? _Gasp_! Could it be true?"

Zoë turned bright red. "Of course not! Why would you thin— _shut up!_ "

Bianca sighed and did twirls through the ocean waters like a flying ballet dancer, she seemed to be enjoying Poseidon's blessings upon them. "I may not be a child of Aphrodite, but anybody can spot a girl with a crush when they see one. Especially when that person is so sloppy at hiding it."

"I don't have a crush!" Zoë grumbled. "Children have crushes. I am a teenager...or an adult, I cannot say for sure ever since my growth spurt."

"If you say so." Bianca said in an unconvinced tone. "But if someone did have a crush on Percy, they'd _might_ want to consider finding someone else to fall so hard for…"

For once, Bianca seemed to peak her interest. "Why do you say that?"

"I know you've heard that he has a girlfriend. This Reyna chick." Bianca sunk to her mattress and sat right across from Zoë . "He talks about her a lot and I think you know this. She seems to be the _only_ one that he has his eyes set on…"

"So I've heard." Zoë bit her lip. "Luckily she's the only one with her eyes set on him."

"Zoë, you don't have to lie to me." Bianca sighed, her eyes looked strangely wiser than her childish demeanor let on. "When it comes to a person's feelings, I don't judge. You can trust me, I have more experience with love than most children of Hades do."

"I don't know how I feel." Zoë muttered the truth. "I'm still me. I still feel the way I always have."

Bianca set her hand on Zoë 's hands, she was awfully good at comforting people with her presence. Was she really a child of Hades? Was it possible that someone had switched two babies after her birth? "Well here's a piece of advice, there's a reason wedding rings aren't triangles. Love triangles just don't work out."

"I'm not worried about love." Zoë stood up and unslung her bow and notched an arrow, she practiced her form even though it was perfect. "I am a Hunter of Artemis. I have been for centuries…and I _always_ will be."

She released the arrow and it pierced right in between the eyes of a crab statue that sat on a counter across the room. Zoë sighed in frustration, she meant to shoot one of its pincers but she seemed to be off. Maybe she was half an inch too high.

"So you are going to accept Lady Artemis' offer? Are you going to rejoin the hunt?" Bianca asked.

That question should have been so easy to answer. Yet why was she struggling so hard to find the words. "I—I don't know. Are you?"

Bianca fidgeted with something in her palms. "It's different with me, there's personal stuff that I need to take care of first. I have to find my brother and then-"

Bianca suddenly perked up, she tilted her head and swam over to the windowsill.

"What's wrong?" Zoë asked.

"Do you hear that?" Bianca replied in such a quiet voice.

"Hear what?"

Zoë 's heart began to race as Bianca's eyes closed shut and she placed her hands over her ears. "You don't hear them? The voices! They're everywhere, it's too loud!"

Bianca sunk to the ground and let put a shrill scream of pain as she tucked her knees into her chest.

"Bianca!" Zoë ran to her and grabbed her by her forearms softly trying to comfort her with her voice. Whatever it was, only the daughter of Hades could hear.

If they weren't under the ocean, Zoë figured Bianca would have been sobbing. "Percy! We need to get him!" She finally screamed.

Zoë didn't want to leave her friend crying on the floor but she trusted that Bianca would be alright as she ventured down the hall to Percy's room. Just outside of his purple door she could hear two voices, one was his and the other was unfamiliar. She opened his door slowly.

Percy stood in the darkness of his room, the torches had gone out and he was basking in the green light that poured in from his windows. There was something off about his presence.

"Percy?" Zoë asked as she approached him from behind, the water seemed to be as black as when she had first arrived to Atlantis. "Are you alright?"

His head snapped towards her and the usual green eyes had morphed into an icy blue color. He held up his fist and large beam of energy came crashing through the ceiling dissolving the marble ceiling in chandelier like it was a sand castle. The son of Poseidon didn't say a word as he propelled through the roof and off into the streets of Atlantis.

Zoë wasn't going to be able to chase him down, this was his domain and he was faster here than she could ever hope to be. "Bianca?!"

She swam back into the other room and came face to face with Bianca, her eyes were bloodshot red. "It's too late they're here! It was a trap, we led him straight to Poseidon's domain!"

"Led who?!" Zoë asked as she grabbed her friend by the shoulders more hostile than she meant to. "Who-"

SCREECH!

A giant roar echoed through the castle followed by the sounds of crashing and explosions.

Suddenly the skeleton of twenty foot long shark came crashing through the halls, seemingly out of nowhere. The little flesh that was still attached its frame tore right off against the path which was was too narrow to fit but it was inches away before Zoë tackled Bianca into her room.

"By the gods!" Zoë gasped as the shark began snapping its giant teeth at her through the doorway. "What the Hades is that!"

Bianca let out a short shrill scream. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I think it's here because of me!"

The entire wall threatened to collapse as the shark began forcing itself into the room. Zoë figured she had three seconds before it ate her alive. "Tell it to leave!"

Bianca nodded but stammered over her words. "Leave us!"

The shark went limp and its lifeless eyes turned into smoldering clumps of charcoal and the entire skeleton burst into flames underneath the ocean.

"That's new to me." Bianca struggled to breathe as explosions rippled outside of the palace and explosions shined through the windows outside. The battle seemed to be ongoing. "Kronos! The man in the mask, they're all here we need to leave!"

She didn't need to say anymore. Zoë grabbed Bianca's wrist and dragged her out of the room. They swam downstairs and made it outside to a giant courtyard that was almost entirely consumed by greek fire and rubble. The entire ocean seemed to be on fire as thousands of monstrous creatures attacked the city from the surface of the ocean so far up. Mermen and citizens of Atlantis screamed in panic as they fought off these invaders. Zoë bypassed all this and shot up towards the surface dragging Bianca along with her, they needed to get out of here. There was little that they could to fight this threat. The armies of Poseidon were going to need to handle this theirselves.

The surface seemed so far away, but to actually get there they would need to get past the waves of vicious monsters first. It seemed almost impossible.

Zoë caught a brief glimpse of Percy propelling through the water like a rocket and crashing directly into Poseidon's throne room not too far away.

"There he is!" Zoë cried and she dragged Bianca in that direction.

Beams of golden light shot out from between the columns and windows, the ocean churned wildly around the structure. Zoë had to shield her eyes from the immense rays of power coming from the palace.

When they made it to the open deck, Zoë 's heart dropped. Percy stood over his father with a golden trident under the gods chin.

"Perseus. Dont do this." Poseidon groaned as his true form flickered violently ready to explode. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Percy!" Zoë screamed in terror.

"He's not here, little one." A deep voice rumbled from his body and an evil smile crossed his face like something out of her worst nightmares. "There is only me."

"Ouranos." Bianca gasped.

Percy sunk the trident into Poseidon's throat and the god erupted into a golden light that consumed the ocean. Zoë tackled Bianca behind a pillar of stone just in time to avoid the waves of the gods true essence.

When the light died, Zoë peered from behind the column to see Percy's lone figure standing in the center of the room with Poseidon's trident in his grasp. He stalked over to his father's throne and stabbed the trident into the seat of power. The trident hummed with power and the throne glowed brightly like a bomb ready to detonate. With little warning the throne combusted into pure energy. When the waters finally cleared, everything seemed black and white, all noise in the ocean disappeared. It was void of all energy and life.

"Percy?" Zoë called out, refusing to believe that this was no longer him. "Percy do you know what you've just done?"

"Only what had to be done." He called back in the ancient voice. "But you shouldn't be here."

Percy flicked his wrist and Zoë and Bianca went soaring through the sea as if someone were yanking them with a fishing line to the top. As they were nearing the surface Zoë suddenly began to lose the ability to breathe underwater. She accidently tried to inhale through her nostrils but it felt as if someone had poked her brain with a hot poker. Bianca must have felt the same way, she thrashed wildly as they finally broke through the surface and went flying ten feet into the air before they came crashing down.

Bianca doggy paddled closer to Zoë and grabbed her hand as she sobbed quietly. "That wasn't Percy…He wouldn't have done that!"

The way Percy looked at Zoë haunted her, it wasn't him of course. That didn't change the way she felt when his cold eyes disregarded her like she was nothing more than some idiot in the way.

"No, it was not...We're fucked." Zoë muttered as she floated on her back and stared up at the night sky. She wasn't one to curse but the situation warranted it.

Zoë thought that she had seen it all in her lifetime, then came her second go around. She now had a friend who is also a boy, she had visited Atlantis, and saw an Olympian god be destroyed right before her eyes.

Zeus had won his war by a landslide. Yet she doubted that he noticed another more dangerous war brewing on the horizon.

As Zoë held on to Bianca for dear life, tears rolled down her cheeks and sank into the ocean depths. Somewhere in the depths, Atlantis was fighting an unwinnable battle and they wouldn't even get the chance to mourn their fallen king and god.

A Olympian couldn't be killed, but when Percy struck down his father's throne, all hope of a speedy revival of his father's form went down the drain with his merciless action. Would it be days, weeks, months, or years before the Sea God returned?

Zoë was utterly lost. What could possibly come next?


End file.
